


Mummy's Flower

by SnowGirl95



Series: Mummy series [1]
Category: The Mummy (1999)
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Family, Friendship, Humor, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-08-27 17:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8410453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowGirl95/pseuds/SnowGirl95
Summary: Nikki O'Connell has done many things with her brother Rick, but one trip to The lost city of Hamunaprta is going to turn everything upside down. Why does the mysterious Medjai leader seem so familiar? And why does the Mummy keep calling her Suhra? Just hang on 'cause this is going to be a bumpy ride.





	1. Chapter 1

1\. Hamunaptra y.1923

I looked at the army of Arabs who we were supposed to fight. There were at least a hundred of them and only twenty of us. Oh yes this will be an even match. When my brother and I joined to the French Legion this was not what I had expected to happen. To be honest I didn’t know what to expect, but this sure ain’t it. I adjusted my dirty beige bandanna off of my forehead and then turned my head towards my ‘dear’ brother Rick O’Connell’s.

‘’If we die here I’ll kill you, okay Rick?’’ I said to him as I position my gun towards the Arabs.

‘’He he, love you too Nikki,’’ he replied laughing.

‘’That’s why I’m here,’’ I said drily as I turn my eyes to our enemies. Being Rick O’Connell’s little sister I’m pretty used to this kinda stuff. I mean after all we’ve been through this is not the weirdest or even the most dangerous thing we have done.

But just when the army of Arabs was about a couple hundred feet’s away, our legions colonel decided to get cold feet and shamelessly ran away.

‘’You just got promoted,’’ our cowardly friend Beni declared to Rick. Rick looked frustrated and yelled everybody to be ready. I loaded my gun and aimed it towards the upcoming army. Okay, next time Rick gets a brilliant idea of an adventure slap him on the head so hard he won’t remember even his own name.

Oh well here we go.

‘’Steady!’’ Rick yelled to the legion, ‘’your with me on this one, right?’’ He then asked Beni.

‘’Oh, your strength gives me strength,’’ he replied. Oh yea right. If he’s not out of here in five minutes or less I’m officially blaming the heat for damaging my brain. We looked the army that was now only thirty feet away from us. Beni looked really pale compared to his normal tan skin and his forehead was glistening with sweat and he looked like he was ready to shit his pants, and then, just as I had predicted, he took off. I gave my brother ‘I told you so look’. He just shook his head as if he had anticipated this and yelled,

‘’Ready!’’ and when the army was couple feet closer, he yelled, ‘’FIRE!’’ We fired our guns and the front row of Arabs fell down. And we fired again and again. Many Arabs fell, but some didn’t and they kept coming at us, fast. Then the Arabs started firing at us. I tried to fire again, but realized that I had run out of bullets. I quickly took cover and started to reload my gun.

The Arabs fired at us and our troops started getting smaller and smaller as they fell. We had to rise up and get to the higher ground. Then the real battle begun when the Arabs finally crossed the wall we were using as cover, lucky I wasn’t behind it anymore or I’d be flattened by horses. We were greatly outnumbered and our numbers were quickly decreasing. The Arabs were using swords along with their guns and we only had our guns and limited amount of bullets.

I looked at Rick and he was totally calm about this situation while reloaded his gun and if he didn’t make it he’d use his gun as a bat and then continue loading his gun. I fired at couple Arabs and as I had an excellent aim they both fell down, but it doesn’t really save us as there still was at least five times more Arabs than there was us. And then I looked again at Rick and apparently he’d also ran out of bullets from his riffle as he throws it away and takes out his two pistols and starts using them. I saw one Arab aiming at him from behind and before he could shoot I shot him on the back.

What would my brother do without me? Rick just gave me a quick nod as thanks.

I ran to his side as he ran out of bullets, again. We started running to the temple as the Arabs started chasing us. I tried to shoot them as we ran, but my gun was also out of bullets and I didn’t have any more guns or bullets for that matter. We then saw Beni standing in front of us. What a heck is he just standing there?

‘’Run Beni, Run,’’ Rick yelled to him. Behind him was a big stone doorway. Are we saved?

‘’Get inside, get inside,’’ Rick yelled to him as we run. Almost there.

‘’Hey, don’t close that door,’’ we yelled at Beni as he started closing the door leaving us outside while he saved his own sorry ass. No no no. He closed the door right in front of us just when we got to the door.

When I get my hand on that little rat he’s going to be sorry that he ever met me. No one messes with Nikki O’Connell. But no time for that now, Arabs were right on our tale. We run around the temple trying to avoid being caught.

Jumping, running, dotting bullets. If this was Ricks idea of a family vacation he’s so gonna get it. We run into some Arabs and had to change way. Finally we ran into a dead end.

‘NO!’ I yelled in my head as I turn around to see that we were surrounded by the Arabs and had nowhere to run.

The Arabs were aiming at us ready to shoot. We closed our eyes and waited the dead to come and get us. We waited and waited. I dared to open my other eye and was surprised to see the Arabs running away.

What?

Then suddenly I heard a whisper. A spooky whisper. Like it was just hanging in the air and coming from everywhere and at the same time nowhere.

‘’What was that?’’ I asked Rick. He didn’t answer to me, but looked the statue behind us. Was it Anubis? God of the dead or something? Then suddenly the sand started attacking at us trying to drive us out of the city.

‘’Whoa,’’ Rick yelled. We ran out of there as the sand apparently wanted. The Arabs were long gone when we got out of the ruined city. When we entered to the desert I looked at it and wondered now what we were going to do.

‘’Rick if die out in the desert, I’ll kill you,’’ I said to Rick.

‘’Hey we didn’t die back there, what makes you think we die out here?’’ He said chuckling and pointed at the desert.

‘’Do you really want to know?’’ I asked. He looked at me when I gave him the ‘really’ look.

‘’I guess not’’ He finally said while still chuckling.

‘’Just start walking’’ I sternly said and started walking ahead.

When we had taken few steps Rick turned around and looked at the cliff.

‘’What is it Rick?’’ I asked and turned to look what he saw. There were ten men on horseback watching at us.

‘’Come on, let’s go Nikki,’’ he said as we started walking away from them. Hoping to never run into them again.

 

y.1926

As I looked the mail in front of me, the bills I would have to pay, I almost started crying. Almost. Where the heck I’m gonna get the money to pay them. I just lost my job as a waiter at the local bar and getting a new one to pay the bills was impossible. But hey it wasn’t my fault I bunched that guy. I had already told him to keep his hands to himself. But did he? NO! So I had to remind him. But unfortunately that reminder cost me my job as a waiter. Not that I’m going to especially miss the place. The boss was creep who was just trying to hit on the good looking workers there and for some reason that included me.

And I haven’t heard from Rick in ages, at least in year and a half, when he was last time visiting me. I was really starting to miss him. He can be a pain in the ass, but he’s still my only brother. And at the same time my only family member. Our mother passed away when I was just five and Rick was nine. Our father, well I never knew him. Rick says that he wasn’t a very good father to begin with and then he just took off one day and didn’t come back. We were raised in an orphanage after our mother died and when we were old enough we were kicked out. Then we did little bit everything. Most of them were Rick’s ideas.

Our last adventure was three years ago back in the French legion and I still wonder who I managed to come back out of it alive. And even if I did say to myself that if Rick gets another stupid idea like that, I’m gonna kick his ass, but now I’m wishing we were in another adventure my usual life no days is so dull and boring. Nothing ever happens around here.

I plowed my unruly golden brown hair out of my face as my blue eyes scanned the road out of my small apartment’s window. The streets around here were always so quiet. There wasn’t a single soul walking on the street. But what can you expect? This is one of the cheapest houses in Cairo and that means it’s on the outskirts of Cairo, barely even in the city.

I suddenly heard a knock on my door and went to open it. There was standing a young, probably fourteen of fifth teen year old, Egyptian boy with black hair and dark brown eyes.

‘’Can I help you?’’ I asked as I leaned to my door frame.

‘’Are you Ms. Nicole O’Connell?’’ He asked. Oh god how I hated my real name.

‘’Yes I am. What is it?’’ I said.

‘’I have a letter addressed to you. It’s about your brother,’’ he said. My brother. What had Rick gotten himself into this time?

‘’Thank you,’’ I said as I took the letter and handed him a five pound bill. He thanked and left without another word. I went inside and opened the letter as I sat down to my taböe next to my pile of unpaid bills and started reading.

Dear Ms. O’Connell

I am very sorry to inform you that your brother, Richard O’Connell, is in our custody in Cairo prison. We are also sorry to inform you that your brother is to be hanged due to his crimes. We would appreciate if you would manage to come and visit him the last time as his only related.

Sincerely  
Warden Gad Hassan

If my brother was here right now I’m pretty sure I would have punched him. Hanged? Honestly.

I rip the letter and throw it into the carbide can. I walk to my closet and get my beige button up shirt and roll it sleeves to my elbows. I then take out my brown pants and boots and put them on my slender well build body. I also put my wild curly hair into a low ponytail.

I then exited my apartment and started walking towards Cairo prison in the city. Rick’s so gonna get it when I get there.


	2. The prison

As I got to the prison gate I had had time to boil my anger inside of me and now I was really pissed off. I’m pretty sure that when I see Rick he’s gonna go deaf when I’m trough with him. I walked in and saw a chubby, very very filthy short man walking toward me.

‘’Ms. O’Connell, I presume?’’ He said. Oh, he’s voice’s hurting my ears.

‘’Yes. Now where is that good-for-nothing brother of mine?’’ I asked.

‘’Right this way,’’ he said and started leading the way. When I walked beside him I notice how he was looking at my body. Lusting, ew. I tried to say something to get his attention to something else than my body.

‘’Why is he here anyway?’’ I asked him when we were at the cell.

‘’After writing the letter to you I had gone and asked it myself,’’ he said.

‘’And what did he say?’’ I asked annoyed.

‘’That he was just looking for good time.’’ He answered.

‘’Yeah that sounds like him,’’ I mumbled to myself. Just then the door on the back of the cell opened and my brother, although he didn’t look like it, came out ‘assisted’ by two guards. He’s brown hair was shaggy and long, his clothes were worn, he was dirty, smelled like sewer and had couple bruises on his body. Apparently he had a _really_ good time.

‘’Hey watch it you,’’ he said to the guards. ‘’What is it?’’ He asked when he saw the warden.

‘’I’ll leave you alone with him,’’ the warden said to me and left. Then Rick noticed me standing there, looking pissed off as ever.

‘’Oh Nikki, nice to see you,’’ he chuckled. He was really testing my patience.

‘’Rick you do realize you’re in a prison?’’ I asked trying really hard not to shout so that I wouldn’t cause any commotion, as my shouting would probably result in some punches and Rick would most likely be the one to receive them.

‘’No really I didn’t notice,’’ he said sarcastically.

‘’What did you do?’’ My patience was really tested here when I tried to be calm.

‘’I was just having a good time,’’ he said looking all innocent. I gave him the look that told him not to mess with me. ‘’Some drunk picked my poked and I tried to punch him,’’ he finally admitted.

‘’Tried?’’ I raised my eyebrow. Rick didn’t try to punch; Rick punches and hits the target if he feels like it.

‘’Well I was pretty drunk myself at the time,’’ he said sheepishly as he scratched the back of his neck. Oh brother.

I then started to hear yelling behind me.

‘’You lied to me,’’ I heard a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties, say. I turned around and saw a young man, probably thirty or so, and a woman walking towards me and Rick.

‘’I lie to everyone, what makes you so special?’’ Said the man next to the woman. She looked like every normal English woman. Pretty dress and big summer hat on her dark brown curly hair. Something I would _never_ wear. She was really out of place here among the thieves and murderers who all looked like they had been rolling in dirt.

‘’I’m your sister,’’ said the pretty woman with brown hair.

‘’Yes, well that makes you more gullible,’’ the man said.

‘’Jonathan you stole it from a drunk in a local bar,’’ the woman yelled to the man.

‘’Picked his pocket actually so I don’t think…’’ the man named Jonathan tried to explain himself with very little success.

‘’Jonathan would you stop being so ridiculous.  Now what exactly is this man in prison for,’’ she said pointing her fan towards Rick who was leaning against his prison bars.

‘’He said he was just looking for good time,’’ the warden answered in his annoying voice.

‘’This is the man you stole it from,’’ the woman whispered to Jonathan.

Wait what? He stole something from Rick? If Rick remembers him he’s gonna get it and hard.

‘’Yes exactly so why don’t we just…’’ Jonathan didn’t have time to finish when Rick said,

‘’Who are you? And who’s the broad?’’ I almost laughed at his lack of manners. Not that I had any more of them but at least I don’t go around town calling women broads.

‘’Broad?’’ The woman tried to say offended, but Jonathan started talking,

‘’Well I’m just a local missionary chad spreading the good word, this is my sister Evy.’’ So the woman’s name is Evy.

‘’How do you do?’’ She said nervously. Well I guess it’s understandable my brother is not in good shape to meet a lady. I’m totally used he being a little shabby shape. But not ever as shabby as now, I mean come on have a shower once in a while Rick, at least try to act like a decent human being.

‘’Oh well maybe she’s not a total loss,’’ Rick said bored.

Oh Rick.

‘’I beg your pardon?’’ Evy said really offended. Just then the warden yelled something in Arab to someone behind us and the he said in English to us ‘’be back in a minute.’’ Take your time I’m not gonna miss you and the more time you spent away, the happier I’ll be.

‘’Ask him about the box,’’ Jonathan whispered to Evy. Box what box.

‘’Um…we found your…um…excuse me,’’ she said trying to get Ricks attention. And when Rick turned to look at Evy she finally had her chance to speak to him face to face, ‘’We found your puzzle box, and we’ve come to ask about it.’’ Puzzle box. They don’t mean…

‘’No,’’ Rick simply replied.

‘’No?’’ Evy asked confused.

‘’No, you’ve came to ask me about the Hamunaptra,’’ Rick stated.

‘’How did you know the box is about Hamunaptra?’’ She asked clearly exited.

‘’Because that’s where I was when I found it. I was there,’’ He said. Oh yeah _that_ box. The box Rick found halfly buried in the sand and had thought he would sell to some collector when we got back. Then Jonathan stepped closer to Rick and said,

‘’And how do we know that’s not a big load on big swallow?’’ Um I wouldn’t be so close if I were you.

‘’You know, do I know you?’’ Rick asked pointing Jonathan.

Oh oh.

‘’No no, I just have one of those faces…’’ Jonathan started only ending up getting punched by Rick.

‘’Good punch,’’ I quietly stated. Same time the guard behind Rick punched him back of his head. Ouch! Evy simply stepped over Jonathan who was lying on the ground nursing his hurt nose.

‘’You were actually at Hamunaptra?’’ She asked.

‘’Believed sister we were,’’ I said as I was leaning on the bars getting a surprised look on her face. Didn’t she notice I was standing there? A big smile grossed across Ricks face. Oh boy, this is not good.

‘’Yea I was there,’’ he said probably thinking that he looked cool. Oh yeah. Not!

‘’You swear?’’ Evy demanded.

‘’Every damn day,’’ He stated.

‘’Hell yeah,’’ I said confirming his words. I mean Rick is the one who thought me everything. Including swearing.

‘’No I didn’t mean that…’’ she tried to say.

‘’I know what you meant. I was there so was she,’’ He said pointing at me. ‘’Seti’s place. City of the dead.’’ He assured waving at his hands for a good measure.

‘’Could you tell me how to get there?’’ She asked. After that statement I almost fell over.

 What? Why does she want to go there. I just wanted to get out of there.

Rick seemed just as surprised as I was. Then she took off that ridiculous summer hat to form sort of make a swift wall between her and the warden, who was still shouting something to people.

‘’I mean the _exact_ location,’’ She said in low voice.

‘’You wanna know?’’ Rick asked.

‘’Well yes,’’ Evy assured.

‘’You really wanna know?’’ Oh for the love of… Rick she said that already.

‘’Yes,’’ she said moving to closer to Rick. He then motions her to get closer and as she did he crapped her head and kissed her. Well that was unexpected.

‘’Then get me the hell out of here,’’ he said as he was smacked on the head again by the guards behind him. Hey he’s already lost enough brain cells; let him keep the little he still has. Then they started fighting. And unfortunately as tough as Rick is he was out numbered. ‘’Just do it lady,’’ He yelled to Evy behind the bars as he was taken away.

‘’Where are they taking him?’’ Evy asked the warden that had appeared to beside us.

‘’To be hanged. Apparently he had a very good time.’’ He said. Oh boy. Here we go again.

We watched as they took Rick to the gallows. Can you get out of this one Rick?

‘’I’ll Give you one hundred pounds to save this man’s life,’’ Evy said to the warden. A hundred pounds. Lady you really need to learn something. These people live to see others being hanged and I’m pretty sure Rick hadn’t acted like a model citizen so he was probably one of the first the warden wanted to see hanged.

‘’Madam I would pay one hundred pounds just to see him hanged…’’ warden said confirming my thoughts.

‘’Two, two hundred pounds,’’ Evy tried again.

‘’Proceed,’’ The warden yelled to the hanger. When I get my hands on that warden…

‘’Three hundred pounds,’’ Wow, this lady’s pretty desperate. Then the hanger said something in Arab.

‘’What of course we won’t let him go,’’ warden said as the Hanger slapped Rick to the head.

‘’Five hundred pounds,’’ Evy said to the warden. He said something in Arab and the he turned to Evy

‘’And what else? I’m a very lonely man,’’ he said as he touched her thigh, but Evy smacked his hand away. The other prisoners started laughing at this. Even I giggled a little. Then he yelled something at Arab witch probably meant that Rick is going to be hanged.

‘’NO!’’ Me and Evy yelled as the hatch under Rick opened. Ricks neck didn’t break so now he was just hanging there waiting to be strangled.

Okay no I’m starting to freak out here. If I’m truly honest, this is the scariest moment of my life. I literally had tears in my eyes desperate to fall down on my cheeks. I rarely cry, and I mean rarely, last time I cried was when our mother died and that was twenty years ago, but now I really wanted to start.

‘’Haha. His neck did not break,’’ the warden yelled in delight. Really, a great way to point the obvious.

‘’Oh I’m so sorry, now we must watch him strangle to the death,’’ he said. When this is over I’m going to personally strangle him.

‘’He knows the location to Hamunaptra,’’ Evy finally admitted. Tears had started to burn my eyes as they begged me to let them fall to my cheeks. I didn’t hear anything they said I was too focused to watch my brother. My breath was stuck in my throat just like his was. Then suddenly the warden yelled,

‘’Cut him down!’’ What he was free. I looked as the hanger cut the rope that was strangling Rick and he fell to the ground. I knew Evy had done something to get him free and for that she had my eternal gratitude.

I ran down to the yard while Rick was trying to stand up. When he saw me he smiled, but that smile turned to groan as he fell down after I punched him straight to the face.

‘’What was that for?’’ He asked the he looked me and saw my red and puffy eyes as I tried to push the burning tears back to my eyes and he had the decency to feel a little ashamed. I knelt in front of him and hugged him.

‘’Don’t ever scare me like that,’’ I said to his shaggy hair as I hugged him.

‘’Don’t worry you won’t get rid of me that easily,’’ he chuckled. 

Evy and Jonathan came to us. Evy started talking,

‘’What is your name?’’ She asks.

‘’Rick O’Connell,’’ my brother says ‘’ Nikki O’Connell,’’ he then says and points me.

‘’Well Mr. O’Connell, I got you free in exchange for 25 percent of the treasures in Hamunaptra to the warden. So I expect you to show up tomorrow morning at nine o’clock at the Giza port. Here’s twenty pounds for you to clean yourself up.’’ Then she and Jonathan started walking away.

‘’Evy,’’ I yelled after her. She turned around to look at me.

‘’Thank you for saving my brother,’’ I said. She smiled and nodded. I turned to look at my brother and he just rolled his eyes and finally said,

‘’Yes, thank you.’’ After Evy and Jonathan had left I helped Rick out of his ropes and we started walking to the gates.

‘’Apparently we’re going to Hamunaptra again,’’ I said to Rick. He looked at me as if I had just grown another head.

‘’You’re not going anywhere,’’ he said. I, again, gave him my famous ‘really’ look and said,

‘’Do you honestly think I’m gonna do as you say.’’

‘’No, not really,’’ he said the smiled at me. I couldn’t do anything else but to smile back.


	3. Start of the journey

We returned to my apartment after visiting the market to get Rick some new, shall I say decent clothes. We had bought him two buttons up shirts, brown pants and new boots, lucky that Egypt is a cheap place to shop. I walked to the closet and took out blue towel, showed it in Rick’s hands and told him to go take a _long_ shower. 

When he came out he looked a little bit the Rick I knew, not dirty but his hair was still way too long to be called civilized. He dressed into the new clothes and I waited him with scissors in my hands.

‘’I’m not going anywhere with you with that hair.’’ I stated as I motion him to sit down. I may not be a professional barber, but I think I managed to cut his hair pretty well. It was no longer up to his shoulders, but his top hair was up to his ears while his lower hair had been cut close to an inch long.

‘’Much better,’’ I stated as I started to take the scissors back to the kitchen.

‘’Nikki what are all these letters,’’ I heard him ask. I looked terrified when I saw him reading one of my bills. He raised his head up to look at me.

‘’Are you in debt?’’  He asked. I couldn’t find words so I simply nodded.

‘’Why didn’t you tell me?’’ He said.

‘’What was I supposed to do? I didn’t know where you were and then I hear you’re in prison. Was I supposed to come see you and say: ‘ _Hey Rick I see you’re in prison, oh and by the way I’m on huge dept. How’s it going?_ ’ ‘’ I said to him. He looked down to the floor.

‘’I’m sorry,’’ he almost whispered. I smiled at him.

‘’It’s okay you didn’t know.’’ I said. I went to the closet once again and brought a big bag with me. I slammed it into the table

‘’Here you go,’’ I said to Rick.

‘’Is that…’’ he asked in awe.

‘’You bet it is,’’ I said as he opened his old gun bag. ‘’Everything is in there in perfect condition,’’ I said.

‘’You know you’re the best sister I could ever ask, ‘’ he says

‘’I try,’’ I say as we start laughing. ‘’Now to sleep young man. We need to get up early tomorrow.’’ I state

‘’Fine, fine. You win.’’ He surrenders as he starts to walk towards his regular sleeping place, the couch.

‘’I always win,’’ I say as he starts to get comfortable on the couch.

‘’Yea whatever,’’ he says sarcastically.

‘’Night, Rick,’’ I say as I lie on my bed.

‘’Night Nikki,’’ He replies.

XXX

In the morning after we woke up and had a small breakfast. Something from my almost empty cupboards. After that we left my apartment and started walking towards the port. We were walking down the dock when we heard Evy’s voice,

‘’…Filthy, rude, a complete scoundrel. I don’t like him one bit.’’ I smile to Rick knowing who they’re talking about.

‘’Anyone I know?’’ Rick suddenly asks them as we appear behind them. They turn around and when they saw what miracles I had made on Rick it leaves Evy totally speechless.

‘’Morning’’ I say happily. That makes Evy’s mouth open even wider.

‘’Um, oh, hello,’’ Evy tries to say probably still a little awestruck by my brother’s new, should I say little more handsome, appearance.

‘’Smashing day to start an adventure aye O’Connell,’’ Jonathan says as he smacks Ricks chest.

‘’Yea, sure,’’ I mumble.

‘’Yeah, yeah smashing,’’ Rick says as he checks he still has his wallet as we have learned that Jonathan has slippery fingers that might steal your priced possessions if you’re not careful.

‘’Oh no I would never steal from a partner, partner. And good morning to you to Ms. O’Connell,’’ he says very enthusiastically to me.

‘’Hi,’’ I just say and wave my hand to him.

‘’That reminds me. No hard feelings of the…’’ Rick says and makes punching motion on Jonathan.

‘’Oh no no happens all the time,’’ He states.

‘’Somehow that’s not hard to believe,’’ I say earning a little laugh from Rick and embarrassed laugh from Jonathan.

‘’Mr. O’Connell can you look me in the eye and guarantee that this isn’t some flim flam because if it is I am warning you…’’ Evy started, but Rick interrupted her,

‘’You’re warning me. Lady but let me put it this way. Our whole damn garrison believed in it so much, that without orders they marched half way cost Libya into Egypt to find that city. And when we got there all we found was sand and blood. Let me get your bags,’’ he said. I remember very well that long march we were on. Oh the heat. I thought I was going to melt during it.

Rick took Evy’s bags along with his own and went to the ship.

‘’Yes, yes, your right. Filthy, rude, complete scoundrel, nothing to like there at all,’’ Jonathan said to Evy.

‘’Maybe, but one thing he’s not is a liar. Hamunaptra is not place for weak minded,’’ I say to them as I start walking to the ship. I then hear some noise ear-piercing noise behind me and as I turn to look I see the dirty fat warden behind me. Oh no, he’s not coming to is he? If he’s not careful during this trip and watch his mouth I might actually kill him by purpose or by accident. Not that I’m gonna miss him afterword’s.

I put my bag in mine and Rick’s cabin and after checking that my gun was safely in its holster I went to deck. Our cruise was pretty smooth and the night came quickly. I found Rick on the deck and started walking with him as a way to avoid boredom. We then heard laughter from the other side of the ship and went to see what was going on and there we saw some Americans playing poker with Jonathan.

‘’Oh O’Connell sit down, sit down. And bring the pretty lady with you. We could use another player or two,’’ one of them said.

‘’I only gamble with my life never my money,’’ Rick answered to him. 

‘’Too true,’’ I say. One of the Americans, the blonde one, then looks at me and says,

‘’You know miss if you ever get tired of O’Connell and his croup your always welcome to come to us.’’  After that statement I saw Rick giving him pretty mean glare.

‘’No thanks Blondie,’’ I say making Rick look a little more comfortable.

 ‘’Oo, Henderson got rejected. First time for everything,’’ the one with the classes says.

‘’Shut up Burns,’’ Henderson angrily says to him.

‘’So you never gamble with your money? What if I were to bet you five hundred dollars that we get to the Hamunaptra before you.’’ One of them, Daniels, says. That got my interest.

‘’You’re looking for Hamunaptra?’’ Rick asks.

‘’Damn straight we are,’’ Henderson says.

‘’Who says we are?’’ I ask them as I don’t think that Rick or Evy had told them where we were going.

‘’He does,’’ they all point Jonathan. I mentally face palm myself, I should have known.  Can’t he ever keep that big mouth of his shut?

‘’Well how about it? Is it a bet?’’ Daniels asks.

‘’Alright you’re on,’’ Rick says after quick thinking. Never can say no to bet, can you Rick?

‘’What makes you so confident, sir?’’ One with a fez and British accent says as he looks up from his book.

‘’What makes you?’’ I ask annoyed by his snobby attitude.

‘’We’ve got a man that’s actually been there,’’ Henderson says confidently.

‘’Oh what a coincidence see O’Connell and Nikki…’’ Jonathan starts to say, but is interrupted by Rick who hits him on the head with his bag and by me as I kick him on the shin under the table. ‘’…Oh whose play is it, is it mine?’’ he quickly says getting the hint to shut up about mine and Rick’s lives.

‘’Gentleman good evening, Jonathan,’’ Rick says squeezing Jonathans shoulder as a remainder to remain quiet and he laughs uncomfortably as he got the hint.

‘’Remember what I said beautiful,’’ Henderson yells after me thinking that I found his flirt intriguing. Oh he’s so gonna get it if he continues it.

We walk to were Evy is reading and Rick just slams his bag on the table startling Evy on the process.

‘’Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,’ Rick says smiling.

‘’Anything that scares me are you manners Mr. O’Connell,’’ She says as she put her book away.

‘’He doesn’t have any,’’ I reply. To this Evy giggles and Rick glares at me and I just smile back at him knowing that it was true.

‘’Still angry about that kiss?’’ Rick asks drily.

‘’If you call that a kiss,’’ she says. Rick just shrugs and rolls his gun bag open to the table. I take two guns and check that they had enough bullets while Rick starts to check his guns even though I had assured him that they were in excellent condition.

‘’Um, did I miss something? Are we going to battle? ’’ She says clearly confused as she looks at the guns and knives in the bag. I just put one of the guns on my waistband as I already had one gun in my own holster and put one knife to my ankle case inside my boot.

‘’Lady there’s something out there,’’ he says and I have to agree completely.

‘’Something underneath that sand,’’ I say remembering the attacking sand that drove us out of the Hamunaptra in the first place.

‘’Well I’m hoping to find a certain artifact. A book actually. My brother believes there’s a treasure. What do you think’s out there?’’ She asks.

‘’In a word evil.’’ Rick says as he checks one of his favorite guns.

‘’Whatever it is hopefully it stays where it is,’’ I say as I sharpen one of the knives.

‘’Amen to that. The Bedouins believe Hamunaptra’s cursed,’’ Rick says to Evy.

‘’Oh I don’t believe fairytales and houccoming Mr. O’Connell, but I do believe one of the history’s famous books is buried out there, the book of Amun-Ra. It contains within it all the secrets of incarnations of the old kingdom, it’s what interested me in Egypt when I was a child it’s why I came here, sort of a life pursuit,’’ she explains.

‘’And the fact that they say it’s made out of pure gold doesn’t makes no never mind to you, right?’’ Rick says.

‘’You know your history,’’ Evy says impressed that Rick actually showed some intelligent.

‘’He knows his treasure,’’ I tell her, crushing her hopes that Rick would be highly educated man. My brother may know a lot history of Egypt _if_ it contains a lot of gold and treasures. Then Evy becomes a bit uncomfortable she looks around for a while and then she starts talking again,

‘’Why did you kiss me?’’ She suddenly asks. Both I and Rick let out a small laugh for her naivety.

‘’I was about to be hanged it seemed like a good idea at the time,’’ Rick says like it’s something everyone would do. Oh dear brother of mine you got lot to learn. I may know why you did it, but you must _never_ admit it to a woman. And now surprise there that she seemed really pissed off by that statement. Evy then got up and walked away, feeling very offended. And Rick looked totally clueless.

‘’What? What did I say?’’ He asks.

‘’You know for someone as smart as you, you really do say some stupid things,’’ I say to him. We then heard a small scream behind some boxes next to us. Rick and I walk to see what it is and Rick pulls none other than that little rat known as Beni from behind the boxes.

‘’Aa, what a surprise, my friends you’re alive. I was so very worried,’’ he tries to convince us.

‘’Well if it isn’t our little body Beni. I think we’ll kill you,’’ Rick says and points a gun at Beni.

‘’Think about my children,’’ he says weakly.

‘’You don’t have any children,’’ I say to him, knowing full well how no woman would be desperate enough to have kids with him.

‘’Someday I might,’’ he says and looks at me. Ew! Get those thoughts out of my head. Ew!

‘’Shut up!’’ Rick says to Beni, ‘’So you’re the one leading the Americans, I might have known. So what’s the deal, you lead them to middle of dessert and leave them to rod?’’ He asks knowing Beni’s schemes.

‘’Unfortunately not these Americans are smart. They pay me only half now and half when I get them back to Cairo. So this time I have to go all the way,’’ he says feeling scared by the fact that he actually has to work for his money.

‘’Dams the breaks huh,’’ I say sarcastically.

‘’You never believed Hamunaptra O’Connell, why are you going back?’’ Beni asks.

‘’You see that girl,’’ Rick says and points where Evy is patting the camels, ‘’she saved my neck,’’ Rick tells Beni.

‘’You always did have more balls than brains,’’ Beni says trying to lighten the mood. Heh, nice try. Not.

We start faking laughter, but then Rick graps Beni by the collar and simply says,

‘’ Goodbye Beni,’’ and throws him off the ship. We lean over the rail to listen his hopeless yells for help as he floats in the river. I laugh at the sight. Then Rick turns serious and walks away. I look at where he went and then at the floor and see wet footprints leading to the direction where Rick just went. Then it hit me where they eventually lead.

Oh no, Evy!

I start running after Rick and when I get to Evy’s cabin I see Evy being held as a hostage and Rick aiming both of his guns at the man in black, who was holding Evy. I too pull my gun out and just then Rick starts shooting and hits another man in black. Same time Evy hits her holder in the eye with a candle and he let’s go of her. One of Rick’s bullets hits the lantern and stars a fire on the ship. Rick covers Evy and we run out of the fiery room. Evy starts running along the corridor when she suddenly turns around yelling,

‘’The map, the map, I forgot the map’’

‘’Relax I’m the map. It’s all up here,’’ Rick says pointing he’s head while leading Evy away from the burning cabin.

‘’Is there actually something up there?’’ I ask sarcastically.

‘’Well that’s comforting,’’ Evys says getting the same idea as me.

When we get to the deck Rick gives his bag to the Evy and says to her,

‘’Hold this,’’ and starts loading his gun. We then heard somebody shooting at us and I, in our defense start shooting him, while Rick loads his gun.

‘’Hurry Rick,’’ I mumble while I shoot. Finally Rick has loaded his gun and we start running across the deck while shooting at the unwelcomed guest.

‘’Can you swim?’’ Rick then asks Evy as we come to the rail of the ship.

‘’Of course I can swim when the occasion calls for it,’’ she says offended.

‘’Trust me it calls for it,’’ he says and throws her off board. He then looks at me.

‘’Don’t even think about,’’ I say and jump on my own off board. I hit the water and immediately after surfacing start swimming to the shore. I see Rick jumping off board leaving panicking warden behind. I smile at this hoping that he doesn’t have the brain to follow us. We all get to the shore safe, unfortunately so does the warden, who actually had enough brain to jump over board.

‘’We lost everything. All our tools, equipment, all my clothes.’’ Evy starts complaining as she reaches the shore. I sat down to the ground and take off my boot to pour out all of the water that had gotten into it.

We then start hear shouting behind us. There is that little rat Beni, on the other side of the river with the Americans and all the horses.

‘’O’Connell! Hey O’Connell! Looks to me like I got all the horses.’’

‘’Hey Beni, looks to me like you’re on the wrong side of the river!’’ Rick yells to Beni. When Beni realizes that he starts kicking the water like an angry child. I laugh at the site.

‘’Where to now?’’ Evy asks.

‘’There’s a village couple miles from here. We should get new stuff there,’’ Rick says to us.

‘’Well let’s get walking we have lot walking ahead of us,’’ I say as I put my wet boot back on to my foot and start walking.


	4. Here we go again

When we get to the village the women there immediately take pity on Evy who’s only wearing her nightgown and they take her with them to get her new clothes, while Jonathan _tries_ to buy five camels from the salesman. 

‘’I only want five. Five. Not the bloody herd. O’Connell can you believe this cheat?’’ Jonathan yells feeling frustrated.

‘’Will you just pay the man?’’ Rick yells to Jonathan feeling irritated. ‘’Probably would got them free. All we would have to do is to give them your sister.’’ Rick says after Jonathan had paid the camels and we were holding the reins as we waited Evy to come from the tent.

‘’Or yours,’’ Jonathan says. Yeah right.

‘’I would have to pay somebody to take _my_ sister,’’ Rick says. From that remark he earned a nice smack to the head from me, ‘’Ow!’’

‘’Yes awfully tempting,’’ Jonathan says. Then Evy walks out of the tent. The Bedouin women had outdone themselves. Evy now wore a black Bedouin woman’s dress and a see-through scarf over her nose and mouth. I have to say she looks beautiful.

‘’Yes awfully,’’ Rick says. Ooh. Looks like somebody has a little crush not that I blame him any man with their genitals intact would see Evy as a goddess that has descended from heavens.  We then mount our camels and start our long ride across the desert to Hamunaptra. Oh goodie!

‘’I never did like camels. Filthy buggers, they smell, they bite, they spit.’’ Jonathan complains just when the warden spits. Ew. ‘’Disgusting,’’ He then adds. I think the warden is more disgusting than the camels any day.

‘’Well I think they’re adorable,’’ Evy says as she pat’s her camel on the head. Then the warden decided to start singing. Oh god. He’s voice was bad even before. Now it’s just terrible. Can’t you just spare us from this horrible torture? I feel like scraping by ears off.

‘’This is gonna be a _long_ journey,’’ I say to Rick as I try to cover my poor ears, to my statement he just nods as an agreement.

At night Evy in her sleep can’t keep her head up while riding a camle, so she accidentally leans her head to Rick’s shoulder, but luckily Rick pushes her back up so she doesn’t fall off.

‘’Well that’s what I call a cold shoulder,’’ I smirk to him.

‘’Shut up,’’ Rick says and smiles, ‘’you should sleep too,’’ he adds.

‘’So should you,’’ I point out.

‘’Okay don’t sleep,’’ he finally says.

Behind us warden is snoring so loudly that Jonathan actually whips him (I don’t blame him) and when the warden wakes up Jonathan pretends to sleep. I laugh a little for this. I Then look at Rick and see him looking at the cliff couple hundred feet away. I look to where his watching and see the same man on horseback as we did three years ago.

‘’Who do you think they are?’’ I quietly ask him.

‘’Don’t know. Hopefully they stay out of our way,’’ he replied.

In the morning we unfortunately run into the Americans and that little scumbag Beni.

‘’Good morning my friend,’’ he says to us.

‘’It was good until you showed up,’’ I say to him without even looking at him. Then we all stop to look at the opening before us.

‘’What the hell are we doing,’’ one of the Americans say.

‘’Patience my good barátom, [AN: I have no idea how I’m supposed to spell that, in Hungarian that means ‘my friend’ (Google translator)] patience,’’ Beni says to them.

‘’Remember our bet O’Connell?  First one in the city, five hundred cash bucks,’’ Henderson reminds Rick, ‘’hundred bucks is yours if you help us win the bet,’’ he then says to Beni.

‘’Oh my pleasure,’’ Beni replies. Oh I’m sure it is. ‘’Hey O’Connell, nice camel,’’ Beni then adds to us. Rick simply smiles and pats his camel.

‘’Get ready for it,’’ Rick then says to us.

‘’For what?’’ Evy asks.

‘’We’re about to be shown a way,’’ I answer to her and point forward. Then when the sun rises, the city of Hamunaptra is revealed from under the sand illusion.

‘’Well would you look at that,’’ Henderson say amazed.

‘’Can you believed?’’ Daniels asks us.

‘’Hamunaptra,’’ Burns says.

‘’Here we go again,’’ me and Rick say in unison. Then everybody start rushing their camels of horses to go there. Hey, we have a bet to win!

Me and Rick catch up to Beni and Rick rides on Beni’s right side and I’m ride to his left. Then suddenly Beni stars hitting me and Rick with his whip. Okay that’s it. That’s when I punch him square on the face and Rick craps his collar and drops him out of his camel.

‘’Serves you right,’’ I hear Evy say to him behind us.

We are on the lead, but the all of the sudden Evy passes us while smiling smugly at us. Wow, that girl is good.

‘’Whoo, go Evy go!’’ Jonathan cheers from behind us as Evy gets into the city first. Five hundred bucks is ours, or Evy’s, but hey who’s counting. 

After we had gotten to the city we started our small camp away from the Americans elaborate one. After that we went to the old hole in the ground that apparently leads us to an old chamber of sort.

‘’Are we going down there?’’ I ask as I look into the dark hole.

‘’Yes, these mirrors will help us down there,’’ Evy simply replied as she cleans one of the mirror.

‘Okay how?’ I ask in my mind. Rick has started to tie the rope around the statue next to the hole as Evy had instructed and he kept hitting the warden every so often to with a rope when the warden finally realizes to move out of the way.

The Americans didn’t waste any time either as they started digging right away.

‘’That’s the statue of Anubis. Its legs go deep underground. According to Bembridges scholars that’s where we find the secret apartment containing the golden book of Amun-Ra,’’ Evy explains to us. ‘’Oh Jonathan, Nikki you’re supposed to catch the sun with it,’’ she says to Jonathan and me when we’re struggling with the big mirror.

‘’So what are these old mirrors for?’’ Rick asks Evy.

‘’Ancient mirrors,’’ Evy corrects, ‘’ it’s an ancient Egyptian trick, you’ll see,’’ she tells him.

‘’Here this is for you. It’s something I borrowed from our American friend over there. I thought you might like it. You might need it down there’’ he says as he gives her a small cloth bag, ‘’What are you looking at?’’ he then asks the warden who had been staring him and Evy. When he sees me smiling he just says, ‘’Shut up.’’

‘’I didn’t say anything,’’ I say looking all innocent. Then after Rick had turned his back on her Evy looks at the bag and sees that it’s a tool kit. Well that was nice of Rick.

Then when Rick is ready to go down to the hole the warden suddenly says,

‘’Hey, look for bugs. I hate bugs.’’ Oh complain a little more please. Nobody asked you to come. I wish there was a lot of bugs just to annoy him if nothing else. Rick just rolls his eyes at this and swings himself to the hole. I go in next and when I get down I don’t see anything special about it dusty chamber for what I could see. Evy then comes after me.

‘’Do you realize we’re standing inside a room no one entered over three thousand years?’’ Evy says to us in astonishment.

‘’Yeah, this place could use a cleaner, ‘’ I say to them as I kick some of the sand on the floor. Rick laughs at my comment and Evy simply ignored it. Then Jonathan comes down.

‘’Huh, what is that god awful stink?’’ He asks as the warden comes down the robe after him, ‘’oh,’’ he just says when he realizes what the source was. Evy goes to one of those big mirrors and start gleaning it.

‘’And then there was light,’’ she then says and positions the mirror and the mirror catches the sun and other mirrors in the room lid up, lighting the whole room. Wow, nice trick.

‘’Hey that is a neat trick,’’ Rick compliments.

‘’Oh my god. It’s Shja netje [AN: Again I have no idea how to spell that] a preparation room,’’ She said.

‘’The what now?’’ I ask after hearing her words. Doesn’t that sound delightful?

‘’Preparation for what,’’ Rick asks.

‘’For entering the afterlife,’’ Evy said in a spooky voice.

‘’Mummies my good children, this is where they made the mummies,’’ Jonathan translated to us.

‘’Oh goodie,’’ I say sarcastically. We walked in the corridors when we heard loud a crackle noise above us.

‘’What was that?’’ Jonathan asked.

‘’Your guess is as good as mine,’’ I say.

‘’Seems like…bugs,’’ Rick said.

‘’He said bugs,’’ Evy said trying to scare the warden.

‘’What you mean bugs? I hate bugs,’’ the warden says little panicking as he looks around him. Apparently Evy had succeeded. Good for her, please do it more often.

We come to the stone statue that Evy confirms it to be the legs of the Anubis statue that we saw above the chamber. Then we start hearing noises from behind the legs. Me and Rick take out our guns and we hide behind the statue ready to shoot. Then we jump from our hiding place and point our guns straight to the Americans, who also had taken out there guns and pointed them at us.

‘’You scared the bejesus out of us O’Connell,’’ Henderson says as he lets out a relieved breath.

‘’Likewise,’’ Rick says.

‘’Hey, that’s my tool kit,’’ Burns says and tries to take the kit from Evy. We raise our guns again and he stops immediately.

‘’No I don’t think so,’’ Rick assures.

‘’Okay, perhaps I was mistaken,’’ Burns says as he backs away.

‘’I thought you were,’’ I say my ‘sweet’ voice.

‘’Well have a nice day gentleman, we have a lot of work to get along with,’’ Evy says trying to get the Americans leave.

‘’Push off. This is our dig side,’’ The one with a fez says. Oh god I hate him and his annoying snobby attitude.

‘’We got here first,’’ Evy says irritated by the man. Then we all raise our guns again.

‘’This is our statue, friend,’’ Daniels says threatening voice.

‘’I don’t see you name written on it, pal,’’ Rick says back.

‘’Yes well there only five of you and fifteen of me, your odd are not so good O’Connell,’’ Beni says to us.

‘’We’ve had worse,’’ Rick says.

‘’Yeah me too,’’ Jonathan then says. Somehow I believe that, only I don’t think Jonathan came out as the winner back then.

‘’Oh for goodness sake, let’s be nice children. If we’re going to play together we must learn to share. There’re other places to dig,’’ Evy then says and puts her hand on our hands lowering our guns. We put our guns away and let the Americans have ‘their dig side’.

Later we came to another chamber little deeper than where the legs of the Anubis were. Evy then tells us to try to open the ceiling that supposedly is right under the legs. Me and Rick take the crowbar and the sledge-hammer and start hitting the ceiling while Evy and Jonathan watch.

‘’According to these hieroglyphics we’re underneath the statue. We should come right between his legs,’’ Evy explains to us.

‘’And when those damn Yanks go to sleep, no offense,’’ Jonathan says to us

‘’None taken,’’ Rick says back to him as he keeps hitting the ceiling. We hit it again, but nothing comes down except dust.

‘’We dig our way up and steal our book right underneath their noses,’’ Jonathan adds.

‘’Are you sure we can find that secret compartment thing?’’ Rick asks out of breath.

‘’Oh yes, if those beastly Americans beaten to us to it, no offense,’’ she says.

‘’None taken,’’ I say to her while I try to fruitlessly squeeze the compartment open with my crowbar.

‘’Where did our smelly little friend go?’’ Jonathan then asks us, referring to the warden, as he looks around.

‘’I don’t know. Hopefully he stays there long. The air is finally breathable,’’ I say to him as I try to catch up my breath.

After a while of hitting the ceiling, we finally sit down to take a break. Of course because Jonathan didn’t do anything to help he plays golf with rocks and a sledge-hammer Rick used earlier. Evy then proceeds to tell me and Rick about ancient mummification.

‘’Let me get this straight, they rip out your cuts and stuffed them in jars?’’ Rick tries to swallow the information.

‘’And they take out your heart as well. Oh and you know how took out your brains?’’ She asks us.

‘’Evy I don’t think we need to know this,’’ Jonathan says to her as he swings the hammer.

‘’They take sharp red hot poker, stick it up your nose, scrambled thinks about a bit and rip it all out through your nostrils, ‘’ she says imitating the process with an iron stick in her hands.

‘’Ew gross,’’ I say disgusted. I think I lost my appetite for the rest of the day.

‘’Ow, that’s gotta hurt,’’ Rick says rubbing his nose.

‘’Well it’s called mummification. You’ll be dead when they do this,’’ she assures to us.

‘’For the record if I don’t make it out of here don’t put me down on mummification,’’ Rick says to us.

‘’I second that,’’ I say still feeling  a little sick to my stomach.

‘’Likewise,’’ Jonathan says as he strokes the rock with the sledge-hammer. Then after the rock hits the wall, something really big drops from the ceiling.

‘’Jonathan!’’ I yell at him.

‘’It wasn’t me,’’ he tries to explain. Evy then goes to investigate it.

‘’Oh my god. It’s a sarcophagus. Buried at the base of Anubis.  He must have someone with a great importance. Or he did something very naughty.’’ Evy tells us after looking over the coffin thing.

‘’Too bad for him,’’ I say. We then start dust the sand away from the sarcophagus.

‘’Well who is it,’’ Jonathan asks impatiently.

‘’ _He that shall not be named,_ ‘’ Evy translates to us.

‘’Wow, that sucks,’’ I replied thinking how he got his name scraped off as he died. Rick then plows some of the sand away, revealing a weird star shaped gap at the top of the lid.

‘’This looks like some sort of lock,’’ he says to us pointing the gap.

‘’Well whoever is in there sure wasn’t getting out,’’ Jonathan says as he looks at the sarcophagus.

‘’Yeah, no kidding,’’ I say feeling kinda weird about the whole thing. This doesn’t seem like the usual Egyptian burial. Not that I know much about in the first place, but still.

‘’Takes a month to crack this thing without a key,’’ Rick states to us.

‘’A key. A key. Now that’s what he was talking about,’’ Evy suddenly says and starts to dig Jonathan’s bag.

‘’Who’s talking about what?’’ Rick asks her.

‘’The man on the boat, the one with a hook. They were looking a key,’’ She says opening the puzzle box Jonathan stole from Rick.

‘’Hey that’s mine,’’ Jonathan says.

‘’Actually it’s Ricks,’’ I say to him. Evy smiles at us as she opens the box and puts it into the lock. And it fits perfectly there. She then smiles at us again.

But then we hear a terrible scream taking our attention away from the sarcophagus. Me and Rick take out our guns and run towards the source the voice. We see the warden screaming and holding his head like he was in pain. He simply pushes us out of the way and runs straight to the wall, dying right on the impact. We watch his body in horror as it falls to the ground, wondering what could have caused this.


	5. Attack at night

At that night after getting out of the tomb, as none of us felt like continuing the study on the old sarcophagus, we were sitting back in our camp by the fire Rick had made earlier, while Rick himself was taking a walk somewhere. The warden’s death was still making us to feel a little jumpy and, I mean sure, I never liked the guy, but I never imagined him to actually die here.

‘’What you supposed killed him,’’ Evy asks.

‘’Well you could think that it was the wall since we saw him run into it,’’ I say earning a pretty mean glare from Evy and Jonathan, ‘’sorry,’’ I apologize feeling a little ashamed as Evy and Jonathan are not as used to death as Rick and I.

‘’Did you ever see him eat?’’ Jonathan says trying to lighten up the mood as Rick sits down next to us.

‘’Seems like our American friends had little misfortune of their own today. Three of their diggers were…um…melted,’’ he says.

‘’What?’’ Evy asks frightened.

‘’How?’’ Jonathan adds.

‘’Salt acid. Pressurized salt acid some kind an ancient booby trap,’’ Rick explains.

‘’Maybe this place really is cursed,’’ Jonathan says a little scared. Just after he says that a strong wind plows our fire almost out making Rick, Jonathan and I to look around ourselves.

‘’Oh for goodness sake you three,’’ Evy finally says annoyed.

‘’You don’t believe curses right?’’ I ask Evy as I throw a stick to the fire.

‘’No I don’t. I believe if I can see it, if I can touch it, then it’s real. That’s what I believe,’’ she states firmly.

‘’Well I believe being prepared,’’ Rick says while he loads his gun. I take out my gun and load it, just in case.

‘’Well let’s see what our friend warden believed in,’’ Jonathan says as he starts investigating the wardens old bag. After a while of digging he suddenly screams, startling all of us.

‘’What is it?’’ Me and Evy ask at the same time.

‘’Broken bottle,’’ he says. Oh come on.

‘’Don’t startle us like that,’’ I say as I throw a small pebble at him.

‘’Lenlivved, [AN: No idea how to spell that] twelve years old. Well he may have been a stinky fellow, but he had a good taste,’’ he says taking a sip. I take the bottle from him and take a sip myself. It was not good and it burned as it went down my throat, but at least it will later help me to sleep here as while I may not be used to feel luxury of soft feather bed underneath me, I don’t like sleeping on a cold sand either.

But then Rick turns around and looks behind us. He rises up and gives the riffle he just loaded to Evy, saying,

‘’Take this. Nikki come with me,’’ he then says to me and I also rise up, ‘’stay here,’’ he then adds to Evy and Jonathan. And of course Evy does not have that normal humans self-protection instinct and she does not obey Rick’s order and follows us.

‘’Hey wait, wait, wait for me, wait,’’ she yells after us. Then Jonathan also rises up to follow not wanting to stay there alone.

‘’Evy, excuse me, but didn’t the man just say ‘stay here’? Evy,’’ he yells after her.

We came closer the American’s camp and saw the black hooded men from the desert running on horseback and attacking at the Americans and their workers. They started shooting at the diggers and we, being nice as we are, decided to join the party. Rick went to the other way and I went the other. I took out my guns and shot couple of the hooded men, one to the back and the other to the shoulder.

Then suddenly somebody jumped on my back, making both of us to fall down. I tried to get him off my back by trying to hit him with my elbows but every time he dodged the blow. We rolled on the sand as he tried to keep me down and I tried to get him off. I finally managed to turn myself over so that I was facing him so that he didn’t have that much of a vantage. That’s when I noticed that he didn’t seem actually that old. Probably my age or maybe a bit older. Well that’s all I could tell since he was wearing a scarf over his mouth and nose, and all I could actually see was his brown eyes.

After a while of struggling I managed to take a hold of his scarf and I ripped it away and I could finally see his entire face. And then I couldn’t do anything, but stare. He had tattoos on his forehead and cheeks, yet even though it was strange to me I wasn’t bothered by them. He looked so familiar, but I couldn’t say where. It was almost like a dream where you wake up knowing that it had been a good dream and you almost remember it, but then the image fades away, that’s what I felt right now. And he seemed to have the same expression.

I finally broke the glance and tried to get him off of me without success. Then I got totally, stupidly crazy idea. I looked him right in the eyes and then kissed him full on the mouth. He seemed startled as he hadn’t been expecting that and that’s when I realized my chance and shoved him off of me.

I stood up from the sand and saw Rick, holding a stick of lighted dynamite in his hand. My attacker saw this too and yelled,

‘’Enough, _tallah._ We will shed no more blood. But you must leave. Leave this place or die.’’ He then looked at me before mounting his black horse, ‘’You have one day!’’ He yelled back at us as he and his men rode away.

I walked to Rick as he took off the lighted sting from the dynamite so that it doesn’t blow up to his face. I then looked the Americans and I immediately started laughing at the site. Henderson’s shirt was untucked, the Egyptologist was holding his umbrella like a sword and Burns still had the shaving cream on his face. Rick then, after seeing that I was okay since I was laughing my head off, went to help Evy, who had fallen down.

‘’See that proves it. There got to be fortunes underneath that sand. For them to protect it like this there got to be treasure down there,’’ Henderson says surely.

‘’No. These men are desert people. The value water not gold,’’ Rick tells them.

‘’You know maybe just at night we could combine forces,’’ Burns asks. Rick looks at him like asking if he was joking then, simply walks away. I chuckle a little at him and then say,

‘’You missed a spot.’’ He touches his face and realizes that he still has the cream on.

Later that night Rick tried to teach a drunken Evy some self-defense, but Evy being too drunk to even stand up straight, they failed miserably. I wasn’t interested what they were doing since I was too tired after all the events that had happened this day. My ‘bed’ was not by any means good of comfortable, but after tonight it was good enough. I took my old duffel bag and hit it couple times to make it a better pillow and then luckily I quickly fell asleep.

 

Ardeth’s POV

I looked down from the cliff at the diggers. They were not making any sign about leaving. They were stubborn. I give them that.

Then I remembered the woman I had been fighting with. What about her was so familiar? And why had she kissed me? Why even that felt so familiar, like I had done it before? But I could swear that I have never seen this woman before.

I looked down to their camp where she had started to sleep, using her bag as a pillow. Who is she?

I didn’t know why but for some reason I had to know. She was nothing like the other women I had ever seen. She was feisty and strong willed and did things exactly like she wanted, letting no one to put her down.

This will not be the last time I see her, I promise that.

‘’Good night,’’ I whispered to the night’s wind.


	6. A walking dead

In the morning, after a rather nasty wakeup call from Rick, we went back to the chamber where the old sarcophagus that we found yesterday was. Evy was really chipper although I thought she may have a pit of a hangover after last night’s drinking, but she wasn’t showing any sign that she had one. Lucky her. We lifted the sarcophagus up so that it was standing next to the wall and that it was facing us.

‘’Oh I dreamed about this since I was a little girl,’’ Evy tells us as she circles the sarcophagus.

‘’You dream about dead guys?’’ Rick asks.

‘’Girl you need a hobby,’’ I say to her as I wipe away some sweat off my forehead.

‘’Oh look the secret spells has been chiseled off,’’ she says, ignoring what we just said to her, ‘’this man must have been condemn not only this life but in the next,’’ she then continues as she looks at the top of the sarcophagus.

‘’Yeah tough break,’’ Rick says, not feeling even remotely sorry for the poor bastard inside.

‘’Yeah I’m all tears. Now let’s see whole inside, shall we?’’ Jonathan says as he turns the key. We pull the top of the sarcophagus off and the mummy pops out of the sarcophagus and we all yell because the surprise.

After catching my breath I look at it and the mummy looked horrible. It looked like it had half-decomposed and still continued to do so as the rotten body fluids were still dripping from moist the mummy. I may not be an expert when it comes to mummies, but I’m pretty sure normal mummy does not look like that.

‘’Oh god I hate when these thinks do that,’’ Evy says.

‘’Is it supposed to look like that?’’ Rick asks pointing at the mummy.

‘’No. I never seen a mummy look like this before his still…still…’’ Evy tries to say to us.

‘’…Juicy,’’ Rick, Jonathan and I finish in unison.

‘’Yes. He must be more than three thousand years old and well it looks as if he’s still decomposing,’’ Evy says.

‘’Hey guys look at this,’’ I say as I kneel next to the top of the sarcophagus we just pulled off and point at the inside of the top. It had scratches all over it, ‘’what’s this?’’ I ask.

‘’My god these marks have been made… fingernails,’’ Evy says as she drags her fingers along the scratches, ‘’this man was buried alive. And he left a message. _Death is only the beginning_ ,’’ she translates the hieroglyphics written on the top. We then look at the decomposing mummy, like it could just start walking right then and there.

Later that night we sit once again by the fire in our camp, but this time the Americans had joined us. Yes, Rick finally agreed to join forces, but only at night. Unfortunately that means we also have to look Beni’s ugly face.

‘’Hey O’Connell. What do you think these babies fetch back home?’’ Henderson says to us as he waves some ancient jars in his hand.

‘’I would be very worried if they would literally fetch you anything,’’ I say back to him, earning few laughs from the people around us.

‘’We heard you guys find yourself a nice gooey mummy. Well, congratulations,’’ Burns grinned at us.

‘’You know if you dry that fellow out you might be able to sell him as firewood,’’ Daniels taunted us. They laughed at us and Rick made a small sneer at them while I started sharpening my knife for good measure.

‘’Look what I found,’’ Evy yelled at us as she walked back to our camp.

‘’You’re in her seat,’’ Rick said to Beni. He just sneered like it was a joke.

‘’Now,’’ I say as I kick him out and he starts to crawl away from us.

‘’Scarabs skeletons, flesh eaters. I found them inside our friend’s coffin. They can stay alive for years feasting on a flesh of a corpse. Unfortunately for our friend he was still alive when these started eating him,’’ she says to us as she shows us the beetle skeletons in her hands.

‘’Ouch, that’s gotta hurt,’’ I say.

‘’So somebody threw these in with our guy and they slowly ate him alive?’’  Rick asks as he looks at the beetles.

‘’Very slowly,’’ Evy confirms.

‘’Well he certainly wasn’t a popular fellow, was he,’’ Jonathan said.

‘’Apparently,’’ I say back to him.

‘’Well probably got a little frisky with pharaoh’s daughter,’’ Rick implies.

‘’Well if the pharaoh’s daughter was anything like you beautiful, I can totally understand him,’’ Henderson smirks at my way. I suddenly hear a small crack next to me and see Rick holding two sticks in his hands. Apparently those sticks were one a few second ago.

‘’According to my readings our friend suffered the Hom Dai, the worst of all the ancient Egyptian curses, one reserved only the most evil. But all my research, I never heard this curse actually been performed,’’ Evy explains to us.

‘’That bad, huh?’’ Rick says.

‘’Yes, well they never used it because they feared so. It’s written that if the victim of the Hom Dai should ever rise he would with him Ten Plaques of Egypt,’’ Evy told us.

‘’I can see why they never used it. Plus that’s stuff they did to him was probably pretty time consuming. Mummify him alive, throw on him some beetles, lock the lid, hide the sarcophagus. Beheading was probably quicker.  A bit messier tough,’’ I say and all of the men start laughing and Evy just shows a little smile as she felt so passionate about Egypt that me slightly disrespecting it was not fun to her, but she couldn’t help but to smile for some of my funny jokes. After our small chat the Americans returned to their tents and we started to get ready to go to sleep.

Later at night I wake up to some noise in our camp. I look up from my ‘bed’ and see Evy with the same black book that the Egyptologist had a while ago.

‘’That’s called stealing you know,’’ I tiredly state to her.

‘’According to your and my brother it’s borrowing,’’ she says as she takes the key from Jonathans pocket. That’s when Rick also wakes up.

‘’What are you doing?’’ he asks

‘’You mean what _she’s_ doing?’’ I correct him pointing at Evy who was messing with the book.

‘’I thought the book of Amun-Ra was made out of gold,’’ Rick asks as we both rise up to see what she does.

‘’It is made out of gold. This isn’t the book of Amun-Ra, this is something else. I think this may be The Book of the Dead,’’ she says as she tries to open the lock on the Book.

‘’The book of the dead?’’ Rick asks.

‘’Are you sure you wanna be playing around with this thing?’’ I ask feeling not too sure about this.

‘’It’s just a book. No harm ever came from reading a book,’’ she says as she places the key on the Book and opens it.

‘’Yeah, but those books probably weren’t called the books of the dead,’’ I state to her. Then a strong wind plows around us again.

‘’That happens a lot around here,’’ Rick states and I simply nod. Then Evy looks at the Book and starts reading it aloud, ’’so what does it say?’’ Rick asks

‘’ _Amun Ra, Amun Dei,_ It speaks of the night and of the day, _sue a harum octubs sinmas I bed paia immatiptin supik et sue yattue yattue yattue yattue…’’_ she reads when the Egyptologist yells at us,

‘’No, you must not read from the Book!’’ We then start hearing a small sound, like waves put on the sky. That’s when Jonathan wakes up, not having a clue what’s going on. The sound turns into small insect voices. That’s when we saw a huge loft of locust coming right at us.

‘’Run,’’ Rick yelled. Don’t have to tell me twice as I start running. We run in to the tomb and Rick and I had taken our guns out just in case. Now you _don’t_ know what might walk in front of you. Then all of sudden the earth shakes and I have to grab the wall to stay up.

Then a huge pile of sand rises up behind us, revealing a ton of those flesh eating beetles. Only THESE ONES ARE ALIVE! That’s when we start running, Rick rushing us to go faster, though I don’t think any of us need any rushing. As we run Rick starts shooting them with his shotgun but it doesn’t make them go away. We run inside some sort of chamber where some of the floor has been crumbled away. Jonathan and Rick jump to the near platform that was still standing and me and Evy stand near the wall. Lucky for us the scarabs passed us without eating any of us.

But then Evy leans to the wall behind us and accidently gets it open. She grabs my arm to support herself, but only makes me lose my balance and also fall in to the hole in the wall. We slide down in some tunnel until we land to the unknown corridor somewhere inside the tomb.

‘’Where are we?’’ I ask as I rub my neck. And before she can answer we hear a small moan pretty close to us. Evy walks towards the sound and then lets out a relieved breath,

‘’Oh, Mr. Burns thank goodness, we were just starting to get scared I lost everyone…’’ Evy starts, but then Burns turns around and we see that his eyes are missing. That’s when we back away.

‘’Oh my eyes,’’ Burns says, but there’s something wrong with his voice. It was all muffed and weak. Then suddenly Evy starts screaming and as I turn around I see the rotten mummy very much alive. I can’t help but to scream too.  Evy tries to back away, but she ends up her back to the wall. And the Mummy follows her.

‘’Please help me, please don’t leave me,’’ Evy begs Burns as he tried to crawl away. But Burns appears to be no shape to help as he can’t see anything. That’s when the Mummy starts to speak,

‘’ _Anck-Su-Namun._ ’’

What? Who? When? I can’t speak ancient Egypt so I don’t know what that means. He then speaks again in Egypt so I have no idea what he says. Then he stretches out his hand towards Evy. I don’t like this. I then take a rock from the ground and throw it at the Mummy hitting him to the head.

‘’Hey you! Leave her alone!’’ I yell. Okay maybe not the smartest move, since he does turn around only to look at me. And then he leaves Evy alone, but starts walking towards me.

‘ _’Suhra?_ ’’ He says to me. The what? ‘ _’Suhra shamila_ ,’’ he repeats and tries to touch my cheek with his rotten hand. Ew! Then luckily Rick comes from the hall way across from me.

‘’There you are. Run. Let’s get out of here,’’ he says when he spots Evy. Apparently he didn’t see me from behind the Mummy. He then, after noticing that Evy is not moving an inch, looks at what Evy’s looking and lets out a shout as he sees the Mummy walking around and maybe a little too close to me for both of our comfort.

‘’Hey leave my sister alone!’’ He yells when he sees me behind the Mummy. That’s when Jonathan accompanied by the Americans comes in. The Mummy turns around and yells at them and Rick simply shoots him. The Mummy falls down next to me and that’s when I take a hike.

We run out of the tomb only to be greeted with a circle of guns pointing at us. The young man from earlier steps in front of us and takes of his scarf.

‘’We told you to leave or die, you refused and now you may have killed us all. You have unleashed the creature we have feared more than three thousand years,’’ he says to us in a serious tone.

‘’Relax, I got him,’’ Rick assures referring how he shot the Mummy. But somehow I doubt it, I mean that thing was dead already so can a simple gun really kill it?

‘’No mortal weapon can kill this creature. He’s not out of this world,’’ the man says to Rick like he was trying to explain something very simple to a child. Then his comrades bring Burns from the tomb to us. He doesn’t look too good.

‘’You bastards,’’ Daniels yells to them as the Americans kneel nest to their fallen friend.

‘’What did you do to him?’’ Henderson asks angrily.

‘’We saved him, saved him before the creature could finish his work. Now leave all of you,’’ the man says but then he looks at me for a moment. And for some reason that look made my heart beat a couple extra beats, ‘’before he finishes all of you. _Ellah, emshi._ I must now go to hunt and try find a way to kill it,’’ he finishes. Then all his men start going inside the tomb.

‘’I already told you, I got him,’’ Rick says to him. The man then turns around and says to us as a warning,

‘’Know this: this creature is the bringer of death, he’ll never eat, he’ll never sleeps, he’ll never stop.’’


	7. Back at Cairo

Back at Cairo we went to the hotel where Evy and Rick started immediately bantering with each other. Evy was backing her stuff and saying that she’s going back to Hamunaptra and Rick is, of course, disagreeing with her. They were packing and unpacking Evy’s suitcase and I just sat there watching the show.

‘’I thought you said you didn’t believe that fairytales and hoccum stuff,’’ he said to her while putting her clothes into the suitcase.

‘’Well having an encounter with a three thousand year old walking talking corpse does tend to convert one,’’ she says firmly to him as she takes the clothes back to the drawer.

‘’Well forget it, we’re out the door, we’re down the hall and then we’re gone,’’ he states to her. Yeah I’m sure she’s gonna do exactly like you say Rick.

‘’No, we are not,’’ she says to him. See what did I tell you.

‘’Oh yes we are,’’ Rick says back.

‘’As much I hate agree, but I think Evy’s right,’’ I quickly say to Rick.

‘’No she’s not,’’ he says to me as he packs the stuff Evy just unpacked.

‘’No we’re not. We woke him up so we are going to stop him,’’ she says.

‘’We? What we? We didn’t read that book. We did tell not to play around that thing,’’ he says to her.

‘’Yes well me, me, me. I, I, I woke him up and I intend to stop him,’’ she then agrees with his logic that she was the one who read and unleashed the undead.

‘’Oh yeah, how? You heard the man no mortal weapon can kill this guy,’’ Rick reminds her. This is starting to give me a headache.

‘’Well then we just have to find some immortal one,’’ she states as if it would be that easy.

‘’There’s that ‘we’ again,’’ Rick points out.

‘’Would you just listen to me? We have to do something,’’ she says as she slams the lid of her suitcase right to Rick’s fingers. Ouch, ‘’once this creature is been reborn his curse is going to spread, the whole earth is going to be destroyed,’’ she explains to us.

‘’Yeah, is that my problem?’’ He asks her while nursing his fingers. Isn’t that kinda?  

‘’Well it is everybody’s problem,’’ she states.

‘’Evelyn I appreciate saving my life and all, but when I signed on I agreed to take you out there and to bring you back. And I have done that. End of job, end of story contract determinated,’’ he yells to her. That was a _bit_ too harsh Rick.

‘’Is that all I am to you contract?’’ She asks while hurt shone from her eyes and voice.

‘’You can either tag along with us or you can stay here and try save the world. What’s it gonna be?’’ He asks her.

‘’I’m staying,’’ she states and for good measure crosses her hands in front of her.

‘’Fine,’’ he tells her.

‘’Fine,’’ she agrees.

‘’Fine,’’ Rick says as he takes my hand and drags me with him to the door.

‘’Fine,’’ she yells back at us.

‘’Fine,’’ Rick finally says as he opens the door and pushes me through it.

We walk in the hallway deadly silence in between us when I decided to bring my opinion out,

‘’You know Rick I think she’s right. We should help her.’’

‘’No. No more supernatural mumbo jumbo to us. We have done a lot of stuff but never this,’’ he says to me in a firm voice telling me that there’s no way he’s going to let either one of us near that creature again.

‘’Well there’s always first time for everything,’’ I say lightly to him.

‘’No,’’ he simply states as he stands in front of me, ‘’Nikki I have lost tons of my friends, comrades, good people, almost my entire family. You’re the only thing I have left in the world and I don’t intend to lose you too,’’ he says to me. I raise my eyes to look at him and to my great surprise I see little tears in his eyes.

I have always thought that Rick was the strongest man alive. That nobody can take him down and nothing, no matter how much you insult or hit him he’s not going to break, but apparently all the loss we have had has taken a toll on him and some things do make him show that side of him that’s still human. As I have never seen him this emotional before and frankly, even though it’s nice to see this side of him, I don’t want to be the cause that brought it out of his shell.

‘’Don’t worry you won’t get rid of me that easily,’’ I say the same thing to him as he said to me as I put my hand to his cheek to reassure him that I was still safely standing in front of him. He quickly gives me a hug and then acts as if he never did that and then we continue our walk to the bar downstairs.

When we get there we see an old drunk pilot walking towards us a big harem girl, or more like a woman, in his arms. Hey isn’t that Winston?

‘’Oh hey Winston,’’ Rick confirms my suspicions as we pass the pilot.

‘’You know O’Connell ever since the end of the great war there hasn’t been a single challenge worthy of a man like me,’’ he says to us as we sit to the bar. Jonathan gives me a shot which I swallow straight down. The burning of my throat felt really good after everything we have went through these couple days. Winston and Rick continue their chat while Jonathan gives Rick a shot and me a second one. Then Winston slaps our backs and announces that he must go back to the airfield. He really needs a job and fast.

‘’So tell me has your sister always been…’’ Rick asks Jonathan.

‘’Oh yeah, always,’’ he states. The Americans come to join us feeling glum as ever, not that I can blame them.

‘’We’re all packed up, but the damn boat doesn’t leave ‘till tomorrow,’’ Henderson states to us.

‘’Tail set firmly between your legs I see,’’ Jonathan smirks to them.

‘’Yeah, you can talk. You don’t have some secret walking corpse after you,’’ Henderson says.

‘’How’s your friend?’’ I ask Daniels referring to Burns who had been treated for his wounds.

‘’He had his eyes and tong ribbed out. How would you be?’’ Daniels says little angrily as he stands up and leaves.

Jonathan keeps giving shots to us, but I refused them after the third one. I may take drink now and then, but I don’t want to get drunk especially now that all my senses need to be extra alert in case something happens. Which I pray and hope doesn’t happen.

‘’Good luck to you,’’ Henderson says to us. Then they take the shots and a second later they spit them out.

‘’What is it?’’ I ask. They were devouring the shots few moments ago just fine. I even took couple and I didn’t spat them out. But then I see that _all_ the customers of the bar had spit out their drinks. So it wasn’t that the guys couldn’t handle the liquor it was something else.

‘’Sweet Jesus tasted like…’’ Henderson starts only to be cut out by Rick, who stand up and dropped his class.

‘’Blood,’’ he says as we look at the fountain in the middle of the bar. The water’s turned red, like blood.

‘’ _And the rivers and the waters of Egypt ran red and were as blood,_ ’’ Jonathan repeats the first plaque from the Bible. Rick looks worriedly around and says,

‘’He’s here.’’

We quickly run to find Evy and we quickly find her walking in the garden with a pile of books in her hands.

‘’Oh Evelyn,’’ Rick yells her. She turns around to see us running towards her.

‘’Oh so you’re still here,’’ she says to us. We laugh at that, but then Rick says to her,

‘’We’ve got problems.’’ Then suddenly a huge thunder storm covers the sky. And fireballs start shooting from the sky. Another plaque. The fireballs land on the courtyard and light plants and humans it hits on fire. We ran along the roof terrace to stay safe from the fire, but we see how the fire destroys a lot of Cairo’s buildings.

Then all of a sudden we see Beni running down the stairs. But when he sees us he tries to climb up, only to be caught by Rick.

‘’Hey, Beni you little stink worm where have you been?’’ Rick asks him as he holds Beni on the wall. But before he can answer we hear a loud roar upstairs. Because of this Beni escapes, but he’s not important right now. We take our guns and quickly run upstairs.

We come to Burns’ room only to find him sucked dry and the Mummy re-shaping getting little more muscle over his rotten body. We immediately point our guns at him, but somehow I doubt they’re going to work like they didn’t back at Hamunaptra.

‘’We are in serious trouble,’’ Rick says to us. And as the Mummy hears us he starts to come toward us and we start shooting him. And unfortunately, as I predicted, the guns have little to no effect on him. He simply throws Rick over the just arrived Americans and Jonathan.

He then looks at me and Evy and stars coming at us as we back away to the wall. He says something in Egypt, which I don’t understand a word, to Evy and then he looks at me and starts talking to me and once again I don’t understand. Then he leans on to Evy as to kiss her. Ew! But just as he was about to kiss her we hear a piano being played quite out of tune and see a white cat there. When the Mummy sees it, he gives a load roar and disintegrates into sand and flows away. After I notice that he was finally gone from the room I let my legs give out on me and I sit on to the floor.

‘’We are in _very_ serious trouble,’’ Rick states as he sits up.

‘’No shit, what gave it away, Sherlock?’’ I ask sarcastically.

Evy then takes out of the hotel and leads us to the Cairo Museum of Antiques. She apparently works there or worked there, I don’t care.

‘’There’s only one person I know who can give us any answers,’’ Evy says to us as she leads to the curator of the museum. When we got there we saw the leader of the hooded men from Hamunaptra. Then everybody, except me and Evy, take out there guns and point them at the curator and the black clothed man.

‘’You,’’ Evy yells.

‘’Ms. Carnahan, miss, gentleman,’’ the curator says politely to us.

‘’What is he doing here?’’ Evy asks pointing at the tattooed man. Surprisingly I don’t mind his presence.

‘’Do you really want to know or do you prefer to just shoot us?’’ The curator asks sarcastically. After that statement Rick, and the rest of them, put their guns away.

‘’After what I just saw I’m willing to go on a little faith here,’’ he says.

We take a seat as the curator starts explaining the situation to us,

‘’We’re a part of the ancient secret society called The Medjais. For over three thousand years we have guarded the city of the dead. Sworn men promised to do any and all to our power to stop high priest Imhotep from being reborn into this world.’’

Wow, never thought this was this serious, but given how they were practically ready to kill us so that the Mummy didn’t wake up I probably should have guessed that this was bigger than it seemed at the time.

‘’And now because of you we have failed,’’ The young man, who had introduced himself as Ardeth, said.  

‘’And you think this justifies the killing of the innocent people?’’ Evy ask stunned.

‘’To kill this creature. Let me think…’’ the curator says

‘’…Yes!’’ both he and Ardeth finish. Okay so this is bigger than big. Wow.

‘’Question? Why doesn’t he like cats?’’ Rick asks.

‘’Cats are the guardians of the underworld. He will fear them until he is fully regenerated,’’ the curator answers calmly.

‘’And then he will fear nothing,’’ Ardeth adds.

‘’And you know how he’s gonna fully re-generated?’’ Daniels asks.

‘’By killing everybody who opened that chest,’’ Henderson says in a surprisingly calm voice.

‘’And sucking them dry, that’s how,’’ Daniels says panicking over the idea.

‘’Jonathan stop playing with that,’’ I say to him when he plays with the old bow behind me making me nervous for him braking it.

‘’When I saw him alive in Hamunaprta he called me Anck-su-namun,’’ Evy says and that gets the attention of the curator and Ardeth, ‘’and just now in Mr. Burns’ premises he tried to kiss me. And he keeps calling Nikki Suhra,’’ Evy adds pointing at me.

‘’He does?’’ I ask feeling surprised by this fact. I didn’t know he called me anything since I don’t speak Egypt, but he had tried to talk to me couple times, but given our language barrier you can guess how much I managed to understand from his babbling. And the fact that I was a tad bit busy feeling disgusted by his rotten appearances.

‘’Yes, Shura means flower in Egypt and he has called you _his beautiful flower_ a couple of times,’’ Evy explains to me. That information gets shivers go down my spine. Rick, and to my surprise Ardeth, looked very disturbed for this information. And I don’t even start how freaked I was by the idea of that…that…thing calling me, one: His, two: Beautiful and three: Flower, since I was neither of those. I am a though woman, who belongs to no one, thank you very much.

‘’It was because of his love for Anck-su-namun he was cursed. Even after three thousand years he’s still in love with her. But I have no idea who Suhra is,’’ the curator answers.

‘’Yes, well that’s very romantic, but what does it got to do with me?’’ Evy asks.

‘’Perhaps he will once again try to raise her from the death,’’ Ardeth says to the curator.

‘’Yes. And it appears he’s already chosen his human sacrifice,’’ the curator says as he and Ardeth look Evy.

‘’Bad luck old mum,’’ Jonathan says.

‘’This just gets better and better,’’ I say sarcastically. My feels like it’s going to explode from all of this information.

‘’On the contrary it may give us the time what we need to kill the creature,’’ the curator says. I turn my eyes to look at Ardeth, who’s for some reason looking up.

‘’And we will need all the help we can get. His powers are growing,’’ he says. I look at the ceiling window where he’s looking and see the moon blocking the sun. An eclipse?

‘’ _And he stretch forth his hand towards the Heavens and there was darkness trough out the land Egypt_ ,’’ Jonathan says. Man has he learned the Bible from cover to cover.


	8. Mummy’s here

Later we head back to the hotel and once we get there no one has any idea for what to do now. I mean we don’t know where the Mummy is and even if we did we have no idea how to beat it as our weapons are completely useless against him. For a while Evy just sat like everybody else but eventually she got so frustrated that she started phasing around the room trying to figure out what to do.

‘’We must stop him from regenerating. Who opened that chest?’’ Evy asks from the Americans.

‘’Well there was me and Daniels here, oh and Burns of course,’’ Henderson said still remembering his late friend.

‘’And that Egyptologist fellow,’’ Daniels adds.

‘’What about our buddy Beni?’’ Rick asks.

‘’No he scrammed out of there before we could open the damn thing,’’ Daniels explains.

‘’Yeah, he was the smart one,’’ Henderson adds.

‘’Beni. Smart. There are the two words I never imagined to hear in the same sentence.’’ I laugh.

‘’Yeah that sounds like Beni,’’ Rick agrees.

‘’We must find the Egyptologist and bring him back at the safety before the creature can get to him,’’ Evy says worriedly.

‘’Right. She stays here. You four come with me,’’ Rick says to us as he rises from the chair. That’s when then complains started. Evy didn’t want to stay here and the guys didn’t want to go. I could see on Rick’s face that he really wasn’t in the mood right now.

He then took Evy on his shoulder while she was demanding an answer for his actions. She even called Jonathan and me to help.

‘’Sorry but he’s a pit…tall,’’ Jonathan tries to explain why he doesn’t defend his sister.

‘’I have learned the hard way not to cross paths with Rick,’’ I tell her giving a small apologetic smile. Rick then threw her on her bed and locked the door while she was on the other side banging the door. He then takes Daniels by the collar and says,

‘’This door doesn’t open. She doesn’t come out, and no one goes in. Right?’’

‘’Right,’’ Daniels assures.

‘’Right?’’ Rick then asks Henderson.

‘’Right,’’ he also assures. Rick then gives the key to Daniels and starts walking to the door.

‘’Let’s go Nikki, Jonathan,’’ he says to us. I start following, but Jonathan wasn’t done complaining,

‘’Oh I thought I could just stay here…’’ he tries.

‘’Now,’’ me and Rick say together.

‘’Yeah right, we just go rescue the Egyptologist,’’ he finally ‘agrees’.

At first we go to the Egyptologist’s office and try to find if he was still there or if it would give us any clues where he was going. But as we get there we find, who else, but Beni going through the Egyptologist’s stuff.

‘’Well, well, well. Let me guess spring cleaning?’’ Rick asks him sarcastically. Beni then tries to run away, but Rick grabs the chair next to him and throws it at Beni, who falls down.

‘’Nice shot,’’ Jonathan compliments.

‘’He always has a nice shot,’’ I tell him as I lean on the wall and let Rick do the talking as he walks to Beni.

‘’Oh Beni you’ve fallen down. Here let me help you up,’’ Rick says as he picks him up by the collar and slams him to the wall, ‘’you came back from the desert with a new friend didn’t you Beni?’’ He then asks.

‘’What friend? You’re my only friends,’’ Beni tries to say to us.

‘’We are? Last time I checked you left _us_ to die on that same desert,’’ I say to him. Rick then punches Beni on to the table.

‘’What the hell are you doing with the creep? Huh, Beni. What’s in it for you?’’ he asks.

‘’It is better to be the right hand of the devil than in his path. As long as I serve him I’m an immune,’’ he tells us. That’s when Rick picks him up and slams him to the wall once again.

‘’Immune for what?’’ Rick asks him. Beni then speaks something in Hungarian which we don’t understand.

‘’What did you say?’’ Rick asks him.

‘’I don’t want to tell you, you just hurt me some more,’’ he answers.

‘’And you think that if you don’t talk he doesn’t hurt you? Well somebody’s gullible,’’ I say to him. After hearing me Rick brings Beni by his collar to the middle of the room.

‘’What are you looking for? And try not to lie to me’’ Rick asks and lifts Beni so he almost touches the ceiling fans that are spinning high speed on the ceiling.

‘’The book! The black book from Hamunaptra! He wants it bad! He says to me it would be its weight in gold!’’ Beni screams feeling scared for his puny life.

‘’What does he want the book for?’’ Jonathan asks

‘’Oh come on I don’t know,’’ Beni pathetically tries to lie. But that just makes Rick lift him up higher so that the top of his hair was almost touching the fans. ’’Something about bringing his dead girlfriend back to life, but that’s all he just wants the book, I swear just the book I swear. And your sisters. But other than that…’’ he says, but then we hear a loud scream outside. Beni uses this as his advantage and hits Rick on the chest and he lets go of him Beni jumps out of the window.

We look out the window and see a hooded figure standing above the dry corpse of the Egyptologist. He then turns to our way to reveal the creature, whose features are now much more clearly within our sight although they are still pretty rotten. And he’s holding the Book in his hands. He then sends a loft of flies out of his mouth towards us. We immediately close the window so that the flies can’t get in.

‘’That’s two down, two to go,’’ Rick says to us.

‘’Then they come to Evy and Nikki,’’ Jonathan says.

‘’Me? Why me. I understand Evy, but why me?’’ I ask feeling a slight panic at the fact that the creature is after me along with Evy.

‘’I don’t want to find out,’’ Rick simply says to me as we start running out of the room towards the hotel where Evy and the rest of the Americans are.

We quickly run to the hotel room only to find Henderson’s dry body on the floor indicating that the Mummy is here. And that gets Rick moving as he slams Evy’s room door open. And inside we find Evy trying to get the creature off of her.

‘’Hey get your ugly face off of her,’’ Rick yells to the creature while Evy tries to stand up and get away from him. The creature then says something in Egypt to Rick and starts to walk to him, but Rick apparently remembers the curator’s words about the Mummy and cats as he lifts Evy’s cat to the Mummy’s view.

‘’Look what I got?’’ Rick says to the creature. The Mummy is clearly frighten by the cat and once again disintegrates to sand and leaves.

‘’You’re alright?’’ Rick then asks Evy as he places the cat to the floor.

‘’Well not sure,’’ Jonathan answers behind us. We then just look at him indicating to him that question was not meant for him.

We then help Evy out of the bed and leave the room. We find Daniels down at the bar and after the quick brief what has happed we all drive to the museum once again as Evy now has a plan, hopefully. We find the curator and Ardeth in the curators office trying to work out their own plan and after telling him how close the creature is fully regaining his powers we then make our way to the upstairs of the building as Evy explains her master plan which involves the other Book, the gold one this time.

‘’Yes, well according to legend the black Book the Americans found in Hamunaptra is supposed to bring people back from the dead. Until now it was just a legend I wasn’t willing to believe,’’ Evy explains to us.

‘’Well believe it sister, that’s what brought our buddy back to life,’’ Rick says to her.

‘’Yes and I’m thinking that if the black Book can bring dead people to life…’’ she says until Rick interrupts her,

‘’…then maybe the golden Book can kill him.’’

‘’That’s the myth. Now we just have to find where the gold Book is hidden,’’ she continues. We then start hearing a strange noise coming from outside.  We go to the window and see a big herd of people covered in boils. Then we’re all some sort of a trance since they were all repeating the name ‘Imhotep’ over and over again as they walk towards the museum.

‘’Last but not least, my favorite plaque boils,’’ Jonathan says to us.

‘’They have become his slaves. So it has begun, the beginning of the end,’’ Ardeth says.

‘’Not quite yet it hasn’t. Come on,’’ Evy says to us. We went to the big stone tablet filled with hieroglyphs and Evy immediately started reading them trying to find the hiding place of the gold Book. Me and Ardeth kept guard the door while the rest of our little crew was next to Evy.

‘’This was not what I imagined to happen when me and Rick got to Hamunaptra the first time,’’ I say to Ardeth remembering how it was just supposed to be a short trip with the French legion and then out. But then Evy came and recued Rick from dying, so we were in her debt and so we took her to Hamunaprta for a little digging. Of course I knew there was something weird going on in there, but didn’t think that it was something like a world destroying Mummy.

‘’You were there too?’’ Ardeth asks unbelieving.

‘’Yeah. It was Rick’s idea to join the French legion. None of this would have happened if me and Rick weren’t so adventurous. I mean me and Rick have managed to do all kind a stuff back in the past. But this is a whole new level,’’ I tell him

‘’Well all I have ever done is trained and after the training guarded the City of the Dead,’’ he says to me.

‘’You need to get out more often,’’ I lightly say to him.

‘’Never had a reason to go out,’’ he explains.

‘’Never?’’ I ask feeling surprised by his faith to serve his cause.

‘’Never. But now I may have,’’ he says and then he looks at me. I think this may be a totally crazy, but we’re probably gonna die anyway so what the heck. I lean towards him and kiss him on the mouth again, but this time it’s not to get him off me. I then pull out and see his surprised face,

‘’Something to remember me for if I happen to die,’’ I say to him as I smile. We then hear Evy starting to talk behind us,

‘’According to Bembridge scholars the golden Book of Amun-Ra is located inside the statue of Anubis,’’ she tells us.

‘’That’s where we found the black Book,’’ Daniels says.

‘’Exactly,’’ Evy says feeling the mystery unraveling before her eyes.

‘’Looks like the old boys from Bembridge were mistaken,’’ Jonathan says.

‘’Yes, they mixed the books up. Mixed up where they were buried. So if the black Book is inside the statue of Anubis then the golden Book must be inside…’’ Evy tells us just when the front door was pushed open. We immediately look downstairs and see all the people running in.

‘’Faster Evy,’’ I yell at her.

‘’Patience is a virtue,’’ she says as she tries to read the hieroglyphs.

‘’Not right now it isn’t,’’ Rick says to her as he looks at the people running in.

‘’I think I’m going to go get the car started,’’ Jonathan says as he runs away. Great help he is.

‘’I’ve got it. The golden Book of Amun-Ra is at Hamunaptra inside the statue of Horus. Take that Bembridge scholars,’’ Evy says to us clearly proud of herself. Does she have some sort of grudge against the Bembridge?

‘’Great now let’s go,’’ Rick says to us as he takes Evy’s hand and Ardeth surprisingly grabs mine. We run outside where Jonathan has started the car and has brought it in the front. We run to the car Daniels and Jonathan saying together how we should get out of there.

Beni then comes out of the museum yelling to Imhotep that we were escaping.

‘’You’re gonna get yours Beni you hear me, you’re gonna get yours,’’ Rick yells at Beni as we drive away from the museum. But that’s when Imhotep’s slaves start chasing us. We ride through the market place when Jonathan suddenly stamps the break. There were another herd of slaves in front of us.

‘’Jonathan step on the gas,’’ I yell at him, but he doesn’t respond. Then Rick gets impatient steps on the gas for him.

‘’Hang on,’’ he yells as we drive through the herd. Some of them manage to grab on to the car and hanging on. I punch couple of guys and shoot one hopefully so that he doesn’t die or anything. But then suddenly one grabs my throat and I can’t get a punch on him since he is behind me. Just when my vision starts to get black I feel the hand loosening on my throat. I look and see that Ardeth had punched him out of the car.

‘’Are you alright?’’ he then asks me worry clearly shining in his brown eyes.

‘’Yeah, never felt better,’’ I say in my raspy voice as I rub my neck that must get some bruises later on. Then couple of the slaves grab Daniels and pull him out of the car. Unfortunately we can’t stay and help him as the slaves try to kill us too.

Few feet away Jonathan manages to drive the car straight to the hydrant and demolishing the car unusable for us now. We immediately get out of the car and try to run away, but the slave’s corner us making our escape pretty much impossible. Then they give way to Imhotep, who now is fully regenerated looking as human as one can possibly look, but we all know that that is the biggest fattest lie one can tell, and he is walking straight towards us.

‘’It’s the creature. He’s fully regenerated,’’ the curator tells us as he looks at the creature’s human face. Then Imhotep starts talking in Egypt to us.

‘’Come with me my princess, it is time to make you mine forever,’’ Beni translates.

‘’For all eternity idiot,’’ Evy corrects him making him rethink he translation. Then Imhotep speaks again not being bothered by his unskillful servant.

‘’Take my hand and I will spare your friends,’’ Beni translates, this time correctly.

‘’Oh dear. If you got any bright ideas…’’ Evy says looking worriedly at us.

‘’I’m thinking, I’m thinking,’’ Rick assures her feeling just as worried as she was.

‘’Let’s think something fast because if he turns me into a mummy you’re the first I’m coming after,’’ Evy tells to him. She then starts walking towards Imhotep and Ardeth and I have to hold Rick not to go after her.

‘’No,’’ Rick says clearly feeling great worry about the idea of Evy with the creature.

‘’Don’t, he still has to take me to Hamunaprta to perform the ritual,’’ Evy assures him as she stands next to the ex-mummy.

‘’She’s right live today, fight tomorrow,’’ Ardeth says to Rick. But then Imhotep starts talking again.

‘’I need you to come with me my beautiful flower. Let us be family once again,’’ Beni translates.

‘’Who me?’’ I ask shocked. Imhotep then speaks in a tender voice and reaches his hand toward me.

‘’Come my sister let me make up my past to you,’’ Beni translates.

‘’Oh god,’’ I whisper, ‘’it’s not like I have a choice does it?’’ I say to not anyone specifically. I take his hand and that’s when Rick has to hold Ardeth not to come after, although it was clear that Rick had to hold himself now too as he was about to lose the two women who meant something in his life. I turn around and see Rick looking at Evy and Ardeth looking at me.

‘’I’ll be seeing you again,’’ Rick says threateningly to Imhotep. Imhotep then not feeling at all threatened by Rick starts leading us out of there. He the shouts something that makes Evy yell at him and squirming out of his touch.

‘’What did he say?’’ I ask.

‘’He told them to kill Rick and the others,’’ Evy translates as she tries to get out of the creatures grip.

‘’What? NO!’’ I yell and start struggle in his grip as well. But he has a firm grip on us. And there’s nothing we can do.


	9. Hamunaptra again

Ardeth’s POV

I can’t believe I let him take her. All these years I’ve been surrounded by people, but in reality I was completely alone. I had to be the leader and make the tough decisions and then carry the consequences by my choices, but now I finally met someone I can be myself with. Not the tough warrior, not the leader, but just Ardeth. She didn’t expect me to be anything else and she didn’t take orders like all my fellow Medjai’s, she made me feel normal. And now after all my training I couldn’t protect the one thing I finally wanted to protect the most.

After Dr. Bey sacrificed himself back in Cairo we headed to the royal air force of Giza. O’Connell says that there’s his old friend who can help us back to Hamunaptra to save Nikki and Ms. Evelyn and stop the creature.

‘’Morning Winston,’’ O’Connell says to an old man drinking tea in the middle of the dessert, ‘’Oh a word,’’ O’Connell then adds. He then explains the situation to the man named Winston. Apparently he’s retired army pilot and he, O’Connell and Nikki go way back.

‘’So what’s your little problem got to do with his majesty’s royal air force,’’ the pilot finally asks.

‘’Not a damn thing,’’ O’Connell answers truthfully to him. After that he looks surprised of O’Connell’s outburst.

‘’Is it dangerous?’’ He asks like if he was wishing it to be.

‘’Well you probably won’t live through it,’’ O’Connell simply replies.

‘’My Jo you really think so?’’ He asks.

‘’Well everybody else we’ve pump into has died, why not you,’’ the man named Jonathan says next to me.

‘’What’s the challenge there?’’ The pilot asks from O’Connell

‘’Save the damsels in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world,’’ O’Connell answers like it would be that easy. And I don’t think Nikki would appreciate to be called damsel. The pilot then laughs and says,

‘’Winston Havelock, at your service, sir.’’ He then leads us to his old plane. Unfortunately it’s just two-seated so Jonathan and I are tied to the wings.

By the looks of his flying Winston appears to be bit rusty since he can’t keep the plane flying straight. I then hear O’Connell, who sat behind Winston in the plane, whistle and yell to me,

‘’How’re you doing?’’ But I don’t answer if I opened my mouth I’m quite sure I would get it full of pass by flying sand. We then see a sand hurricane on the distance and it’s bigger than normally so it must be the creature. We then see three people fly out of it. That must be Nikki and Ms. Evelyn. As well as the creature’s servant.

We see all of them standing down there and the creature is now there also. The creature starts a huge sandstorm and sends it after us. Winston tries his best to outfly the storm, but the storm catches us and we are swallowed by it.

But then suddenly the storm is out. I don’t know what caused it, but a good thing it did. I don’t think our pilot could manage to keep our plane in the air much longer in that storm. But then suddenly our plane gets on fire as the sand blocked the engine and me have to pull emerge landing.

The plane is totally in pieces after we land. There’s no way it could be repaired. We get up from the plane and I hear Jonathan on the other side of the plane complaining something about lack of help. I take the riffle that was attached to the plane and start walking when I hear O’Connell behind me,

‘’Winston. Hey Winston’’ O’Connell says to the pilot, but he doesn’t answer. O’Connell checks his pulse and by the look on his face there isn’t any. And then the whole plane starts to sink into the sand.

‘’Quick sand get back,’’ I yell at them as I too back away from the sinking sand. We walk further from the plane and watch as it sinks with our pilot in it. After it had sank from our sight we start walking toward Hamunaptra.

 

Nikki’s POV

Imhotep leads us through the dark chambers we didn’t come when we were here last time. He looks awfully confident. We walk behind him and Beni walks behind us.

‘’Get moving,’’ he says to us and points the gun at us. When I get my hand on that little rat he’s going to regret he was ever born. And I mean literally he will be _very_ sorry for even coming into this world.

‘’You know nasty little fellows such as yourself always get their come uppins,’’ Evy says to him. He first starts laughing, but then he ask seriously,

‘’They do?’’

‘’Yes. _Always_ ,’’ I confirm in a very firm voice making it clear that if it were up to me he will get what’s coming for him and even more. We then start following Imhotep again down the stairs.

We then hear a shot upstairs and I know it must be Rick and the others. Apparently Evy has the same idea as she smiles and says,

‘’O’Connell.’’ Imhotep then takes some dust in his hand and blows it to the wall as he says something in Egypt and then, suddenly, the pictures, that are actually mummified skeletons, on the wall come to life. We all, except Imhotep, back down a little.

‘’Bembridge scholars never wrote about this,’’ Evy simply says as she holds my arm for support. Imhotep then says something to me which I don’t still understand.

‘’What did he say?’’ I whisper to Evy.

‘’Do not be frighten my flower they will never hurt you,’’ she translated.

‘’Is that supposed to make me feel better?’’ I sarcastically ask. The mummies then bow to Imhotep and he bows back. He then says something and points to the direction of upstairs.

‘’Now what did he say?’’ I ask again. I seriously need to start learning ancient Egypt.

‘’He told them to kill O’Connell and the rest and wake up the others,’’ Evy answers.

‘’That’s not good,’’ I state to which she nod.

Imhotep then takes some other dust and blows it right at our faces. I accidently breathe in a breath of the dust as it hits my face and my world immediately went black.

 

Ardeth’s POV

We come to a large chamber inside the tomb and O’Connell shoots one of the mirrors near us so that we could have a light. When the room is lighted I can’t believe my eyes. This is the treasure chamber of the Fallen Kings. It is huge. I can hear Jonathan’s loss of words as he doesn’t really know what to say since he simply makes some noises that don’t mean anything. We then start walking down the stairs.

‘’Can you see?’’ Jonathan asks as he looks around himself in awe.

‘’Yeah’’ O’Connell simply answers.

‘’Can you believe?’’ Jonathan asks again.

‘’Yeah,’’ O’Connell answers again.

‘’Can we just…’’ Jonathan starts.

‘’No,’’ O’Connell says firmly. I agree these treasures are not ours to take. We then hear a sound right behind us and when we turn we see some mummies coming through the floor.

‘’Who the hell are these guys?’’ O’Connell asks as he points his guns at them.

‘’Priests. Imhotep’s priests.’’ I answer to him remembering how the creature had his priests buried with him back in the ancient times.

‘’Alright then,’’ he says as we start shooting at them. We keep shooting them, but there are just too many of them and I honestly can’t remember how many priests Imhotep actually had so I don’t know how many there still will come at us. We back away from the chamber to the corridor and keep shooting them. Then I hear Jonathan yelling,

‘’There he is. Hello Horus old boy.’’ O’Connell then gives his shotgun to me as he starts digging his bag. In the meantime I keep shooting at the mummies trying to keep them away from us. O’Connell then pulls a stick of dynamite out of his bag. He uses my cheek to light up the match and then he lighted the dynamite and says,

‘’Time to close the door,’’ as he throws the dynamite to the door. We then take cover as the dynamite blows up at the door. We look up and see the entrance sealed for the moment and that’s when O’Connell and Jonathan try to open up the hatch so they can take the Book of Amun-Ra while I load the gun. We then hear a sound of mummies on the next corridor.

‘’Man these guys just won’t quit do they?’’ O’Connell says.

‘’Keep digging,’’ I say as I go shoot the mummies that have come to line of vision. Then I hear their gasps so I presume they found the Book.

‘’The book of Amun-Ra,’’ I hear Jonathan say. Then I realize my gun has run out of bullets. I turn to look at them and say to them, ‘’Save the girls, kill the creature,’’ as I charge toward the mummies. I have to do this it is for the sake of Nikki and the world. I then see O’Connell light up another dynamite, but for some reason he doesn’t throw it.

‘’What are you waiting for? Get out!’’ I yell at them as the mummies make me back further from them. I then hear the dynamite blow up sealing the entrance between me and O’Connell and Jonathan, and then all I hear are the screams of the mummies.


	10. Live or die

Nikki’s POV

When I finally I wake up from my unwanted unconsciousness the first thing I notice is that I lie next to a black watered pool and that my hands have been tied up behind me.

Oh for Jesus Christ!

I look up and see Evy chained on the table in front of me and that there’s a rotten mummy beside her. Oh oh! I reach for my pocket for my pocketknife and as I get it I immediately start cutting the ropes that hold my hands behind my back. But suddenly I hear a small moan and I look up to see that Evy’s also waking up.

‘’Evy don’t look at your left!’’ I yell so that she doesn’t look at the mummy lying next to her.

‘’What?’’ She says and looks to the left. When she sees it she starts screaming as I predicted. I’m almost ready with the ropes and as I look to the table where Evy is I see the mummies Imhotep has as his servants, I don’t know, make a circle around the table.

Then Imhotep himself comes into the camber with the black Book in his hands. He looks at the mummy on the table and says something gentle at it. That’s when Evy starts screaming,

‘’O’Connell! Jonathan!’’ I think they’re a bit busy right now. The mummies then start chanting something and bowing around the table. That’s when something ghostly emerges from the pool next to me and it goes straight to the mummy next to Evy. I’m almost cut off the rope. Then suddenly I hear a horrible demonic scream and right behind it an Evy’s scream. I look up and see that the mummy’s next to Evy has come to life.

Then Imhotep is next to Evy with a long gold knife in his hands. He raises it above his head as to strike it through Evy’s chest. I finally get the rope cut and I run to Imhotep and take his arm so that he doesn’t get to kill Evy. He looks at me surprised and simply pushes me off. I stumble a bit and just when I’m about to charge at to him again I hear Jonathan’s voice,

‘’I found it Evy, I found it!’’ He yells as he appears at the top of the stairs holding a heavy looking golden book in his hands. That must be the Book of Amun-Ra.

‘’Shut up and get me out of here Jonathan,’’ Evy yells at him, ‘’open the book Jonathan; it’s the only way to kill him. You have to open the book and find the inscription,’’ Evy advices him.

‘’I can’t open it. It’s locked or something. We need the key Evy!’’ he yells.

‘’It’s inside his robes,’’ Evy tells to Jonathan pointing at Imhotep who was walking towards Jonathan. Jonathan then runs away with the book seeing Imhotep approaching him. I immediately run to Evy and try picking the chains holding her to the table with my pocketknife.

Then suddenly Rick jumps out and I just barely get out of the way of his sword as he cuts one of the chains holding Evy. Then the mummies start attacking at us. Rick wields his new sword and I just try to keep them away by simply punching them. Which ndoesn’t do much.

‘’What took you so long?’’ I ask Rick.

‘’Sorry, we had a little traffic jam in our hands, ‘’ he answers.

‘’Where’s Ardeth?’’ I ask as I punch one of the mummies away from me.

‘’We had to split up,’’ Rick states. We punch kick and hit the mummies and it looks like we’re winning. When all the mummies were down, Rick turns to Evy and says,

‘’Mummies.’’ Just when he’s about to cut Evy’s other chain something grabs his leg and makes him fall down. I look and see a half of the mummy holding his leg and other one starts to keep him still as one whole one tries to squash him with a big stone tablet. I try to run to him, but he cuts the mummy’s legs and makes it to fall down with the tablet.

I kick the mummy holding Rick’s leg and Rick gets the other one off of him. I help him stand up and he just takes his sword and helps Evy out. We hear Jonathan starting to read the book and just when we’re about to get out of there a herd of mummy soldiers come at us.

‘’Where does these guys come from?’’ I ask. 

‘’Oh yeah, this just keeps getting better and better,’’ Rick says.

‘’Do something Jonathan,’’ Evy tells Jonathan.

‘’Me?’’ He says

‘’You can command them,’’ Evy tells him.

‘’You’ve got to be joking,’’ he says.

‘’Does this look like a time to be joking?’’ I yell at him.

‘’Finish the inscription on the cover and then you can control them,’’ Evy explains. Jonathan then leaves hopefully to read the book to get these mummies off of our tail. We back away from the soldiers but then suddenly the female mummy, which was just lying on the table next to where Evy used to lay, attacks Evy. She runs away from the mummy as we prepare to fight off the other mummies.

‘’Rick if we die here, I’ll kill you,’’ I say my trademark farce.

‘’Feel free,’’ he answers. He the yells as loud as he can at the mummies, who yell back so much louder.

‘’Uh uh,’’ he shakes his head and grabs my hand as we run away. We run inside the chamber trying to get away. Rick the grabs a rope and cuts it so we rise up as the mummies stay down. Even mummies can’t fly. We run to the corridor, but decide to change the way as the mummy soldiers are there also.

We run down the stairs and when we turn around and don’t see anything we’re taken aback. We then turn around and see the soldiers right in front of us. Rick starts to fight them, but for me I keep running since I don’t have any weapon to fight them and I don’t feel like becoming a pin cushion today.

I run away couple soldiers on my tail when I hear Jonathan yell something and Evy answering, but that’s all I hear or bother to try to hear as I’m too focused on running for my life. I then run straight to the big statue and lean against it. I’m cornered, no way out and I just close my eyes just like back at the legion. The mummies are just about to strike when Jonathan finishes the inscription. I look up and see the blades frozen just above my head.

They then move to position and wait commands from Jonathan. I hear Imhotep yell something at them, but they won’t obey. I hear Jonathan giving them a command which I presume to be to destroy Anck-su-namun as he said her name and the mummies start to march towards her and Evy. The soldiers go to her and… well… kill her, if you can say that, seeing as she’s already dead.

I turn my head and see Imhotep holding Jonathan by the throat and Rick slashing straight through Imhotep’s hand and Jonathan _and_ the hand fall down. Ew. He then throws Rick away by the collar. I run to Rick and try to help him up. Imhotep comes to us after attaching his arm once again and simply pushes me away and grabs Rick. Why doesn’t he try to hurt me? He tries to hurt everyone else.

I just run to Jonathan and Evy, who are ready to read the Book.

‘’Keep him busy,’’ Evy yells to Rick as he tries to fight Imhotep off.

‘’No problem,’’ he yells back. Evy then opens the book and turns the pages to find the right one.

‘’Hurry Evy, hurry,’’ me and Jonathan say.

‘’You’re not helping,’’ Evy says. Just when Imhotep is about to kill Rick Evy yells,

‘’I got it. _Gagish mol, gagish mal,paradus, paradus!_ ’’ We’ll see a ghost carriage come down the stairs and they go straight through Imhotep. He tries to catch it but, before he can it disappears. He turns to look at us with fury in his eyes and we just back away as Rick grabs his sword.

‘’I thought you said it was gonna kill him,’’ Rick says as Imhotep starts coming at us. Rick slashes his sword through him and to some reason this time he bleeds real blood.

‘’He’s mortal,’’ Evy tells us. Then that means that blow will kill him. Imhotep holds his bleeding gut as he backs away into the pool where he starts to decompose once again. He looks up at us and yells something before he is totally sink in.

‘’ _Death is only the beginning_ ,’’ Evy translates. But then the walls around us start to sink down.

‘’Time to go,’’ Rick states. We run and as we run across the bridge Jonathan falls down dropping the Book into the pool.

‘’You lost the book, Jonathan you lost the book,’’ Evy says shocked for losing the artifact.

‘’Come on,’’ we all say impatiently to her as we continue running. We run to the treasure chamber and that’s when Jonathan stops.

‘’Could we just…’’ he says to us.

‘’No Jonathan,’’ we say as we drag him out of there as the door stats to close. We manage to get out of there, but then we hear a shout behind us,

‘’O’Connell, O’Connell!’’ And we see Beni trying to get to us. Rick tries to help him but the door closes on him.

‘’Goodbye Beni,’’ Rick says as he rises from the ground. We continue our running since the place about to collapse underneath us.

We come outside and we run between the pillars that fall down. Run, run,run! That was about all in my mind right now. We run to the desert to safety and watch as the lost city of Hamunaptra blows up right in front of our eyes. Finally we can catch our breath with an ease. Then suddenly Jonathan yells loudly and makes us all shout. We look at what he was yelling at and see Ardeth on a camel, tired but alive.

‘’Ardeth, you made it,’’ I say to him as Jonathan keeps rubbing his chest.

‘’Oh thank you, thank you very much,’’ Jonathan says sarcastically as he holds his poor heart that probably had a mild heart attack.

‘’You have earned a respect of me and my people,’’ Ardeth tells us.

‘’Yes, well it was nothing,’’ Jonathan says to him waving it off.

‘’May Allah smile up on you always,’’ Ardeth says to us. He the kisses his knuckles and touches his forehead

‘’And yourself,’’ Jonathan says.

‘’We will meet again,’’ Ardeth then says to me.

‘’Don’t worry I know we will,’’ I answer to him. He then leaves turns his camel around and starts riding it to the desert to return to his tribe.

‘’Yes, anytime,’’ Jonathan says back to him.

‘’Stay out of trouble,’’ Rick adds.

‘’He’s just leaving us here. Well I guess we go home empty handed. Again,’’ Jonathan complains. I pat him on the shoulder as a small gesture of comfort.

‘’I wouldn’t say that,’’ Rick says as he looks at Evy.

‘’Oh please,’’ Jonathan says as Evy and Rick share their first kiss.

‘’I guess you won’t get rid of us,’’ I say to Jonathan.

‘’How about you darling, would you like a little kissy wissy,’’ he says to the camel, but when he smells the camels breath he changes his mind. I just simply laugh at this.

But I can’t help but to smile. After everything we went through we’re actually still alive. Tired, yes, scratched, somewhat, but still undoubtedly alive. Rick then lifts Evy to one of the camels and the mounts himself behind her. Jonathan rides next to me on the camel he just tried to kiss and I ride on the remaining camel looking at the setting sun and wondering what life will bring at us next.

 

**The end!**


End file.
